On September 19th, Veranika Patachyts, Business Development Manager at GPS-Trace, represented Gurtam at the IoT Days Fall online conference as a spotlight presenter. She highlighted technological innovations in asset tracking using BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and GPS solutions.
This event spanned across two days and was organized by the IoT M2M Council, bringing together IoT adopters, enterprises, developers, and product designers worldwide to discuss industry challenges and solutions.
Here’s a quick recap of the most interesting moments from the event by Gurtam. Let’s dive into the details!
IoT Days Conference: A Quick Recap
IoT devices are growing in adoption at a breakneck speed. Newer and more feature-rich devices are being deployed across industries ranging from consumer home electronics to supply chain management to defense integration. With so many varied and beneficial uses, events like the recent IoT Days Conference had a lot of ground to cover.
The primary challenges this conference wanted to address fall into:
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Focusing on security for deployment covering all three layers of the IoT stack. That includes looking at devices, networks, and platforms, as well as how all three of those layers interact.
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A closer look at asset tracking that provides better monitoring and management of inventory, resources, and other key business elements were discussed. The improvements offered in such efficiencies can help lower expenses, streamline operations, improve sustainability goals, and result in higher profit margins for businesses.
Global asset monitoring: connectivity convergence and IoT telematics in focus
One section of the two-day conference focused on how participating companies are managing innovation in IoT asset tracking.
The open panel discussion brought about current asset management and tracking trends. Markets are expected to grow, with the forecast in global asset tracking holding a 13.7% improvement from 2023 to what should happen in 2029, according to Beechum Research.
Here are some of the key talking points that are worth focusing on.
Global Use Case:
It is important to note that asset tracking is a global use case. The discussion highlighted how 70% of current clients use interborder tracking, requiring a lot of network connectivity to function properly. Enhanced connectivity was a talking point that frequently came up among the panelists. Consumers, manufacturers, and developers are all placing higher expectations on receiving real-time updates and location accuracy.
While cellular technologies have long been dominant in connectivity, other solutions are increasingly in demand. Remote access to asset tracking, particularly in areas with limited terrestrial coverage, has become a 'hot topic,' driving the adoption of satellite solutions.
Whereas satellite IoT is being leveraged for greater accuracy, as well as BLE, WiFi, and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) regarding coverage and power management. You can often find these reliable, high-speed communication systems being utilized where minimal power consumption is a serious concern – especially in logistics industries.
Tuning Pads & Band Switching:
Connectivity from different networks is crucial to asset tracking, but finding those near field or remote frequencies is also a challenge. Panel participants mentioned that there are many forms of frequency for asset tracking from 30 MHz to 3 GHz, including everything from near field communication (NFC) to RFID and more. Businesses and developers are “latching” onto whatever best-use frequencies are provided in the given business area. Multiple frequency bands in varying geographic regions require tuning pads and band-switching devices.
Many IoT devices rely on tuning pads to optimize how such technology operates using different frequencies. With these pads or the ability to switch between different frequencies, the connectivity across different regions comes into risk.
The goal is to have such IoT devices being tracked to be automatically adjusted and optimized without introducing brand-new hardware for every region. Consumers are leading the charge in this trend as more and more remote asset tracking applications are expected when devices are onboarded.
GNSS Solutions:
The use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) was mentioned by both Martin Jefferson of Globalstar in the U.S. and Carmen Redondo of KYOCERA. The massive proliferation of supply chains moving through remote or harsher terrain geolocations is supported by satellite connectivity, reducing the chances of lost items.
Liz Wilson of Ground Control spoke at length about this topic, as they primarily manufacture satellite devices and terrestrial form-factors in the U.K. The primary problem is that not every device has the power for such connectivity, or there simply are insufficient satellite coverage providers for all the demand. Business owners require specialized equipment to receive the signal at tracking sites. These are often large sensors that require space, maintenance, and dedicated attention, making them challenging to integrate.
Companies have to pay close attention to the asset tracking use case of the intended client. What works well for an NTN military application may not be the same for vessel monitoring or dash camera interaction. It’s all about leveraging IoT technologies to match current trends.
Challenges Brought Up
This panel discussed many trends and notable highlights of the relative companies being represented. However, we wanted to touch on three important challenges that businesses are facing when addressing IoT and how it applies to asset tracking.
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The first is the global availability of service. BLE, WiFi, and UWB offer varying levels of solutions, but only when a network is present. Not all countries aiming to leverage such asset-tracking technologies have the necessary infrastructure in place. As connectivity improves globally, we can expect the BLE, WiFi, and UWB markets to grow further, driven by the demand for low-power innovations.
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The second challenge concerns coverage in general. The frequency and the availability of networks with IoT access also varies. What works well for a small town in central Florida in the States may not work so well in the mountains of Portugal. Businesses needing frequent updates as assets move across borders are having to jump from coverage to coverage, an often high power demand on devices in transit. The challenge is providing coverage so real-time updates can be communicated to managers, teams, and operators.
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Finally, understanding what is required during global coverage was mentioned. NTN networks must be deployed with greater reliability to ensure satellite connectivity and coverage can provide real-time data for effective and efficient asset management.
It was interesting to hear Martin Jefferson of Globalstar discuss how asset tracking is the primary driver of new device innovation. Consumer demand expects a higher level of connectivity, and that is dictating how manufacturers are changing device builds to manage NTN and satellite connectivity — a sentiment echoed by RockSEVEN.
However, with all these advancements, you must have multiple NTN providers (satellite services) in place, which we are still “somewhat off” from having — as pointed out by Liz Wilson of Ground Control. The cost of applying such devices and technologies is a wall to many businesses not ready to make the financial jump.
Gurtam Spotlight: GPS and BLE for Asset Management
The panel discussion on asset tracking finished with a spotlight presentation from Gurtam’s own Veranika Patachyts. This focused on how BLE tags can significantly enhance and transform the established GPS tracking business.
The real meat of the discussion is around how a smart approach to BLE tracking can help improve the asset tracking industry by:
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Enhancing reporting and notification for individual tracking tags.
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Uploading maps of restricted areas.
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Reducing the onboarding costs for global SMEs.
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Bulk tag registration and management with scalable features that allow a business to grow.
The low power consumption of BLE devices is a cost-effective solution for many telematics integrators and end users. This low-cost level makes it an excellent option for larger-scale deployment in logistics. In addition, having indoor tracking capabilities that leverage BLE signals from multiple beacons offers exceptional accuracy when triangulating precision details.
You can watch the full video of Veranika Patachyts' presentation via the link.
Concluding Remarks
This year's IoT Days Fall online conference was an excellent opportunity to meet with fellow industry leaders and discuss many of the trends and emerging challenges the industry faces. Gurtum was happy to offer a spotlight presentation on BLE and GPS asset tracking and looks forward to many other opportunities to share with innovative companies, developers, and product designers.
