onsemi has announced a new system-level solution that addresses the main issues related to the development of asset tracking tags.
Traditionally, battery life has been the biggest obstacle to the adoption of these tags, especially in the industrial sector where reducing maintenance (and related costs) is a priority.
TheAsset Tag RSL10 provides a long battery life of up to five years.
This is undoubtedly a remarkable achievement, considering that so far the typical battery life of tags or beacons used for asset tracking is around one year (or even a few months).
There aretwo factors behind the significant increase in battery life: the low power consumption of the RSL10 Bluetooth 5 SoC radio and firmware improvements.
In addition to RSL10, the new platform integrates a 3-axis accelerometer and environmental sensors (motion, pressure and temperature) to provide detailed information and useful data about the environment, condition and orientation of assets.
Each sensor is powered through a dedicated load-switching MOSFET, controlled by RSL10.
Such an approach allows the power consumption of the entire system to be monitored at the level of the individual sensor, thus reducing total consumption.
Other notable features of the platform include a low-cost antenna, adaptor circuits optimised for Bluetooth Low Energy transmissions, a multi-use dome switch and a 10-pin debugger that can be removed according to the needs of the particular application under consideration.
RSL10 has recently been chosen to develop a beacon (i.e. a very small transmitter) for indoor use designed to track and monitor hospital equipment and provide useful information to healthcare professionals.
The device was developed by Blyott, a provider of IoT solutions, and Tatwah, a leading manufacturer of Bluetooth 5 beacons and tags.
Blyott decided to use Tatwah 's RSL10-based beacons because of their small size, very low power consumption and the ability of the IP67-rated tags to meet stringent sterilisation requirements.
The RSL10 Asset Tag comes with a full range of development tools including multi-protocol wireless support for BLE and Quuppa's Intelligent Locating Syste real-time location services.
Within the CMSIS-Pack, included with the evaluation board, onsemi developed a custom application that highlights the platform's very low consumption and potential in an asset tracking application.
Comments
"onsemi provided us with the ideal hardware platform for developing Bluetooth-based RTLS solutions," said Gery Pollett, CEO and co-founder of Blyott, "With RSL10, we were able to meet the demanding requirements of the healthcare industry. We were particularly impressed with the energy efficiency of the RSL10 radio," concluded Pollett.
Quuppa's Senior Customer Manager Santtu Pulli said, "The next generation RSL10-based Bluetooth LE tags will enable our company's partners to leverage accurate location data, enriched by sensor information, as well as benefit from unprecedented battery life. This will allow these tags to be used in applications previously precluded due to the high cost of ownership. The real-time visibility of assets and the resulting optimisation of productivity will be a competitive advantage for all manufacturing, warehousing and logistics companies. This is only the beginning, as the possibilities are virtually limitless.
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