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Is it possible to locate objects in 3D using bluetooth?

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legocitytruck

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Is it possible to use bluetooth to locate a nearby object in 3d space? For example, is it possible to place a bluetooth emitting object in one hand while holding a bluetooth receiving cellphone in the other hand, move the object around and track the object's 3d movement with the stationary phone?
 
A company is already doing this to track various hardware devices.

Using x,y,z coordinates and measure the time for the signal of the device between the 3 antennas and you then can triangulate for position. Police already use this in downtown Washington D.C.
 
In other words no, you cannot track an object with only one receiver, only distance "at best". 3 receivers is the minimum for an approximate location.

I take that back, if you had a directional antenna and pointed it at the object (in a controlled lab environment or minimally line of sight) then you could in theory determine approx. location but you wrote "stationary phone" and (consumer) phones don't have directional antennas.
 
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You need to define your question a little better. Let me run through some possible questions.

Can you locate a Bluetooth emitting object in a 3D environment? Yes, Bluetooth is radio waves, with the right equipment locating that would be trivial. In fact with the right equipment attached to the phone you could radar map the entire room and find the object that way. Can a standard phone do this? No, as mindless1 notes you would need specialty hardware to do either of these things.

Another idea is that you could use Bluetooth to send accelerometer and GPS data from the device to a phone to get rough detection, location, and tracking.

There are a number of other ways that this could be done as well. You could use the camera on the phone to track the object.
 
You would need sensors every 9 feet or so since blue tooth signals are n ot very strong.

This would become very expensive unless for example your company buys computers with built in blue tooth then it would be easier to track.
 
not bluetooth... but aren't there all sorts of projects using wifi doing this? also, people have been hacking MS Kinects for this type of stuff..
 
^ No. It's not a tech problem rather a physics requirement that to locate in 3 dimensions you need 3 points of reference, although two of those points could be the phone if you move and track it as two of those points of reference at two different locations.
 
If he wants X/Y/Z, you need 4 sensor sources.

1. Gives you a distance (sphere) to the first source.
2. Gives you a circle to the two sources. (intersection of two spheres)
3. Gives you two points on that circle to the three sources.
4. Resolves the ambiguity of the two points.

Of course... that's in free space. If there's anything that interferes with the signal strength of your bluetooth source (like... a car, or a wall, or a floor) then it doesn't work anymore.
 
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