What kind of application can the low-power wide-area network have in the field of asset location tracking?

With the development of society, mobile location tracking has been paid more and more attention by people. Whether it is in the safety of the elderly, children, or the tracking management of valuable assets, it is a potential market for mobile location tracking. To achieve mobile location tracking, it is necessary to have multiple levels of terminal equipment, mobile communication networks , and management platforms to advance together. In terms of terminal equipment, wearable products such as smart bracelets and watches can currently achieve limited functions. The simple homogenization of application functions greatly limits the development of the industry. Therefore, the implementation of mobile positioning functions is required to enrich the application of products. In the mobile communication network, traditional 3G and 4G networks consume large amounts of power, and the high price makes many users discouraged. With the emergence of low-power wide-area network technologies such as eMTC and NB-IoT, it provides a large-scale implementation of mobile positioning. The foundation.

2016 is the first year of low-power wide-area. After 3GPP announced the freezing of the core standard of NB-IoT, the three major operators in China are actively carrying out relevant layouts, hoping to realize nationwide network deployment as soon as possible. So, what role will a low-power wide-area network play in the field of asset location tracking? This is a topic that many people care about. On January 10th, the theme salon organized by Qualcomm Inc. and hosted by the Internet of Things Think Tank, "Application of Low-Power Wide Area Network in Asset Location Tracking" was held in Beijing Zhongguancun Venture Street. In addition to Qualcomm and Xiamen Application companies such as Jun, Zhongyou Ruifei, and Gelian Technology, as well as module manufacturers such as Mobile Communications, Simcom, and Mobile Communications, have conducted in-depth discussions on this issue.

Different application scenarios require different low-power wide-area network technologies

The vision of the "Internet of Everything" mentioned in the Internet of Things is definitely not solved by one or two communication technologies. The existing carrier cellular network, short-distance communication technologies such as wifi, Bluetooth, zigbee, and many other communication technologies such as GPS To meet specific needs, from a certain perspective, communication technology can determine the diversity of application scenarios of the Internet of Things.

The low-power wide-area network will also be a coexistence of multi-level technology. Qualcomm senior product marketing manager Liao Xianjun shared at the salon: Low-power WAN is divided into standardized and non-standard technologies developed by 3GPP, standardized At the technical level, both NB-IoT and eMTC have distinct characteristics. NB-IoT is suitable for applications such as mines and meters because of its excellent technical specifications in terms of deep coverage and low power consumption, while eMTC is reserved. The voice function and mobile positioning function of LTE technology are more suitable for applications in mobile asset management and personnel positioning. Non-standard low-power wide-area networks such as LoRa are more suitable for applications with special needs because of their flexible networking characteristics.

Compared with NB-IoT, the market demand covered by eMTC cannot be ignored. In fact, China Mobile is conducting pilot and testing of eMTC network. Not long ago, China Mobile and Ericsson and Qualcomm completed the first cellular eMTC/Cat in China. -M1 data transmission. It is reported that the test utilizes Ericsson's wireless access network and Qualcomm's MDM9206LTE modem. It is believed that with the improvement of diversified low-power wide-area networks, the application of the Internet of Things will usher in a real outbreak. According to Qualcomm, with the release of the 3GPP standard Release 13, the company is advancing Cat-M1 and Cat-NB1, two new narrowband technologies that can be extended to achieve higher node densities and for low-throughput IoT applications . optimization. These new technologies are targeted at low-data IoT communications, which can significantly reduce terminal complexity, extend battery life and increase coverage.

In terms of asset tracking areas, also we need to have different assets based on attributes of the different requirements of communications technology, such as static asset management using RFID more cost-effective, and dynamic asset management will need to adopt more secure GPS and cellular networks Mobile communication technology, in short, IoT is an era of contending for a variety of technologies.

Why does asset location tracking require a low-power wide-area network?

Although the entire asset location tracking industry covers different levels of communication networks, low-power wide-area networks will play the most important role. Because the low-power wide-area network can well meet the most important requirements of the asset location tracking industry for communication technology:

Low cost, big connection

The huge connection market that was born in the Internet of Things era has important significance for the asset location tracking industry, such as the care of the elderly and children, the tracking of pets, the monitoring of the position of cars and bicycles, and so on. These application scenarios were not networked before, but because the cost of networking is too large, but the low-power wide-area such as eMTC can greatly reduce the cost because only some features are retained. The rise of industry is crucial.

safety

Security is a basic requirement for all networked products, but more and more hacking incidents are full of concerns. Qualcomm's security technology expert Liu Xuehui cited a research data from HP at the salon: 70% of the current There are no security measures for networked devices. On average, each device has up to 25 vulnerabilities, and the device has a privacy risk of 80%. This shows that the status quo of IoT security is not optimistic. After years of development of LTE, end-to-end security has developed very mature, and it is very difficult to invade this system. Therefore, these two new low-end LTE specifications make LTE stand out in the future of the Internet of Everything in the field of wireless communication technology candidates.

Liu Xuehui said that Qualcomm has its unique advantages in the field of IoT security, including 1) scalability: the Internet of Things is an extremely broad field, and Qualcomm's security solutions are widely scalable in terms of cost and complexity. Sex, which can be easily integrated and deployed in a variety of customer product terminals and meet end-user needs; 2) Qualified: Qualcomm's leading security technology in the mobile industry has been used in billions of end products worldwide, with Strong IP and capabilities, security technologies for the Internet of Things are based on this proven foundation; 3) Industry cooperation: Qualcomm works closely with the industry ecosystem, and its solutions take into account the final business type, its hardware-based The security solution is its more differentiated.

Unlike other solutions, Qualcomm's hardware-based security solution integrates with the AP and connectivity functions in a single SoC, eliminating the need for additional security ICs, saving BOM. The security foundation of Qualcomm's Opteron processor is also multi-layered, including the security operating environment, Secureboot, hardware key, software, firmware, static storage of data and data transmission.

GPS

Real-time positioning is an important function of asset management. We know that traditional QR code or RFID can only monitor items at specific locations and cannot meet the real-time location monitoring function of assets, while eMTC technology sacrifices. A certain data transmission rate, but retains the mobile positioning function of LTE technology, which combines the characteristics of low power consumption and mobile positioning.

Qualcomm's LBS expert Zhao Bin introduced at the salon that Qualcomm has long-term technical accumulation in positioning technology and has achieved excellent results in mobile phone products. For the Internet of Things market, Qualcomm's positioning technology products have unique advantages. First, Qualcomm integrates navigation systems such as Beidou, GPS and Glonass in its chip products. Multimode positioning has higher accuracy and positioning success rate than single mode. Qualcomm's built-in integration scheme is compared to independent satellite positioning module. More cost-saving, layout area and power consumption; Qualcomm also uses auxiliary positioning technology such as base station positioning and wifi positioning in the chip products, which enables Qualcomm products to achieve good positioning results both indoors and outdoors; Whether it is the A-GNSS required by the operator or the Xtra technology unique to Qualcomm, both can greatly reduce the time for satellite positioning to start, and also reduce the chip's strength requirements for satellite signals, which can be used in more demanding environments. Complete the positioning function.

Low power consumption

Most of the asset location tracking terminals are used in passive environments, and it is too much trouble to charge these devices every day, which puts high demands on the battery's endurance. Low-power wide-area network technology is the best choice for such applications. NB-IoT, eMTC, etc. can achieve a battery-use level for several years.

What are the typical cases of low-power wide-area networks in asset location tracking?

Although the low-power wide-area network does not have a large-scale network deployment in China, there are already many specific application scenarios in which water testing has been carried out, and good results have been achieved. Of course, a larger application market is being conducted on a low-power wide-area network. A powerful call.

Shared bicycle

Since 2016, the shared bicycles headed by Mobai and ofo have spread all over the country, because shared bicycles cannot be managed with security locks like private cars. The management of bicycles has become a problem that these companies have to pay attention to if there are many people. Using the loopholes of rules and technology to turn a shared car into a private car will cause great losses to the company.

At the salon, Wu Deqing, director of R&D of Xiamen Yujun Co., shared a case of low-power wide-area network technology in the electric bicycle industry. In this project, the owner can check the vehicle position, vehicle trajectory, equipment power, and line status. The real-time monitoring of information reduced the car-losing rate from 10% to 5.2%, and the car-recovery rate increased from the original 6% to 43.2%.

Industrial asset management

The assets of industrial assets, especially large enterprises, are a very large stock market. In this huge market, only one% of the efficiency of asset management needs to be increased by 1%. At this salon, Sun Shisheng, the director of IoT of CNPC Ruifei, shared the management necessity in the field of petroleum assets, especially in asset management such as wellhead assets, oil and gas pipes, dangerous goods and power plants, which are of great significance for cost saving and efficiency improvement. .

Wearable product

Many of the current demand for wearable products are optimized through low-power wide-area networks, such as low power consumption, low cost, and increased positioning and voice. It is believed that with the establishment of LPWAN networks, wearable products will enter the next stage. The outbreak of the wave.

to sum up

Asset location tracking is a market that cannot be ignored. The number of connections is large enough and the application scenarios are sufficient. Therefore, it attracts many enterprises to deploy in this field. The low-power wide-area network is also the key to open the Internet of Things world. Convenient to achieve massive data connections, what kind of sparks will happen when the two meet?