Geolocation has become a major issue for all businesses. If company vehicle fleets were among the first to use geolocation to control and optimize the use of their trucks, vans and other construction vehicles, the limitation lay in the obligation to connect the GPS beacon to the battery of the vehicle.
The Internet of Things opens up a new field of opportunities by offering battery-powered GPS beacons with great autonomy. This makes it possible to meet the needs of geolocation and collection of other parameters, small equipment, machines, people, packages.
Main features of the Geolocation application
- Real-time location
- Position history
- Route visualization
- Integrated visualization of graphs (speed, temperature, humidity, pressure, shocks) on the data collected by the GPS beacon
- Definition of geofencing zones and generation of alerts in the event of crossing a zone
- Calculation of times spent by GPS beacon status
Different Geolocation Methods
GPS - Satellite Geolocation
Pro: Accuracy within a few meters Cons: Energy consuming, and only outdoors
LBS - Location of the telecommunications antenna
Pro: No specific energy consumption Cons: imprecise location, within a few kilometers
WIFI - Triangulation based on the signal from WIFI hotspots
Pro: low energy consumption Cons: location 10-100m. No location guarantee
BLE - location based on Bluetooth beacons
Pro: low energy consumption. Good precision Cons: requires the deployment of Bluetooth beacons
Outdoor and Indoor Geolocation
The combination of different location methods ensures good geolocation, both outdoors and in buildings.
In an outdoor environment, you can combine, depending on the characteristics of the selected tracker, WIFI, LBS and GPS location. The objective is to increase autonomy by reducing electricity consumption.
In indoor environment, methods based on LBS, WIFI and BLE can be used. To also be able to locate the level (floor) in a building, the use of BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) Beacons is an option.
Datalogger: Activity, Temperature, Humidity, Shock, Light
If the location of assets is the starting point for many use cases, it is often also necessary to be able to collect other data, such as the history of temperatures, humidity, shock events, variation in verticality, etc. . Monitoring of the cold chain, transport of fragile equipment, etc. Certain GPS beacons offer the possibility of collecting and storing this data, which is transferred when the communication network is available.
Communication networks available
Different options for data communication between the tracker and the IOT Platform are possible:
If trackers operating in 2G/3G/4G are always an option to have global coverage, there are today 2 more advantageous options in terms of battery consumption: NB-IOT and CAT-M1. LORAWAN and SIGFOX are also a possibility, when the coverage needed is more limited.
A catalog of autonomous GPS Trackers
Many GPS trackers can be activated, depending on specific needs.
Consult a first selection.
Contact us to help you select the best GPS Tracker/Datalogger compatible with your needs.
