Researchers plan to track the meanderings of thousands of festival-goers at a top European rock festival using Bluetooth technology. They hope to find the source of a new generation of tracking devices.

The research team is from the University of Ghent in Belgium. It thinks that their research could yield new satellite navigation applications for the retail and security sectors.

“We have installed 36 Bluetooth scanners across the site and along a few surrounding roads, as well as bus stops,” the university’s Nico Van de Weghe said on Friday of the project at the Werchter festival, northeast of Brussels this weekend.

Mobile phones that are equipped with  Bluetooth can be tracked within a radius of 30 meters by the scanners. The researchers are also taking care of the privacy issues of the people flocking to see Coldplay, Kings of Leon or Metallica. Researchers will only track the devices’ MAC address (the number that identifies each device on a network) and not phone numbers or personal details.

The research is carrying out on geographical information systems, like satellite navigation systems. They hope to find out a solution to track moving objects in real time.

Related posts