Location awareness

Location awareness refers to devices that can passively or actively determine their location. Navigational instruments provide location coordinates for vessels and vehicles. Surveying equipment identifies location with respect to a well-known locationa wireless communications device. Network location awareness (NLA) describes the location of a node in a network.

The term applies to navigating, real-time locating and positioning support with global, regional or local scope. The term has been applied to traffic, logistics, business administration and leisure applications. Location awareness is supported by navigation systems, positioning systems and/or locating services.

Location awareness without the active participation of the device is known as non-cooperative locating or detection.

The term originated for configurations settings of network systems and addressed network entities. Network location awareness (NLA) services collect network configuration and location information, and notify applications when this information changes. With the advent of global positioning systems and radio-equipped mobile devices, the term was redefined to include consumer-focused applications.

While location awareness began as a matter of static user location, the notion was extended to reflect movement. Context models have been proposed to support context-aware applications which use location to tailor interfaces, refine application-relevant data, increase the precision of information retrieval, discover services, make user interaction implicit and build smart environments. For example, a location-aware mobile phone may confirm that it is currently in a building.

Description in logical terms uses a structured textual form. International standardisation offers a common method using ISO/TS 16952 as originated with German standards DIN EN 61346 and DIN EN 81346.

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