In the implementation of intelligent logistics, the MBM01 beacon with Bluetooth 5.1 protocol reduces the indoor positioning error of the traditional Bluetooth 4.2 from 3-5 meters to 0.3-0.5 meters by supporting the Angle of Arrival (AoA) algorithm. In JD Logistics’ 2023 warehousing digital transformation project, the installation density was 6 MBM01 beacons for every 100 square meters, enhancing the path planning efficiency of AGV material handling robots by 27% and reducing the equipment collision rate by 41%. It is estimated by ABI Research that companies using such high-precision Bluetooth beacon solutions can save 128,000 yuan on electricity bills on average per 10,000 square meters of warehouse per year, owing mainly to the fact that the lighting system can be dynamically adjusted based on real-time positioning data.
Actual application in medical settings has put MBM01’s adaptability to environments to the test. Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, China, in 2022, the medical equipment tracking system it implemented shows that in the CT room where there are a lot of metal instruments and liquid interference, MBM01’s 2.4GHz adaptive frequency-hopping technology keeps the signal loss rate within 1.2%, 68% greater than the last generation product. After the system was online, the recovery time of mobile DSA equipment worth 8.7 million yuan was shortened from an average of 23 minutes to 4 minutes, and the equipment utilization rate increased by 19 percentage points. MIT Media Lab test result shows that if the transmission power of the beacon is increased from -20 DBM to 4dBm, MBM01’s penetration ability in the concrete wall case is increased three times at the expense of battery life which must be sacrificed from 5 years to 2.8 years.
Spatial data analysis in the retail business confirms the commercial value of bluetooth beacon. The MBM01 network (height of 2.4 meters and a distance of 8 meters) deployed in Yonghui Superstores’ pilot stores in Beijing’s heat map shows that the dwell time of customers at promotional display stands near the fresh food section has increased by 37%. When combined with the electronic price tag update function triggered by beacons, near-expiry products’ conversion rate has increased by 22%. It is interesting that the installation of beacons has to meet the requirements of the ISO/IEC 24730-2017 standard. For the base configuration of a 3,000-square-meter store, the cost of 62 beacons hardware accounts for approximately 18% of the total expenditure, but it is possible to achieve 278% ROI by boosting the shelf conversion rate. The audit report of Walmart stated that after adopting the encrypted Bluetooth beacon, the risk of leakage of location data of customers was reduced by 92%, fulfilling Article 32 of the GDPR’s mandatory requirements for data processing security.
Technological innovation has been driven by the particular demands of industrial manufacturing environments. The actual test conducted by Sany Heavy Industry on its No. 18 intelligent factory in Changsha proves that MBM01’s IP67 protection level enables it to operate 12,000 hours failure-free in a welding workshop with 85% humidity and 45dB noise. With beacon and UWB combined positioning, the precision of the heavy-duty robotic arm collaborative operation is ±1.5mm, which is four times higher than that of the pure Bluetooth solution. Note that when the beacon density exceeds 0.8 per square meter, the possibility of channel conflict will increase sharply to 15%, and the TDMA time slot allocation algorithm has to be utilized for optimization. It is mentioned in the Siemens Industry 4.0 White Paper that, in the predictive maintenance system adopting Bluetooth beacon, the false alarm rate of equipment failure decreased by 63% and the spare parts inventory turnover rate increased by 29%.