– and the March Towards MASSIVE IOT by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise Iot Insights FEATURE REPORT

DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: ASSET TRACKING

OCTOBER 2020 ASSET

– and the march towards MASSIVE IOT by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights FEATURE REPORT

1 | What is asset tracking and what is it worth? (It’s a jungle – and it’s massive) Asset tracking is the oldest game in town, and remains the great engine of IoT; so why is it so hard to hit targets?

hat is asset tracking, any- Who is right? Because no one communica- 50bn way? And what is it worth? tions’, and sets – IoT connections by Because tracking of machine agrees; which is the trouble five require- 2025; the sector has data, one way or another, is ments: battery been struggling to with crystal-gazing. Except live up to this famous easilyW conflated with the internet-of-things life of 10 years; there is consensus across forecast since (IoT) movement, at large. And we all know coverage pene- 2010 about the mad growth slated for gener- the stats and specs that it is tration of 164 dB; al-purpose IoT. Fifty billion connections, by going to be ‘massive’, and an throughput of 160 bits 2025? Gulp. argument to say it already is per second; capacity of million devices That single finger-in-the-air forecast, per square kilometre; round-trip latencies by Cisco and Ericsson, way back in 2010, so. A billion is a billion, after of 10 seconds; and, importantly, ultra-low has cast an impossible shadow over the all, and smartphone sales, by cost hardware. sector’s progress; the industry has been comparison, have stalled at These are the terms for cellular to serve trying to shake it ever since, even as it has massive-scale IoT. But they guide the traits grappled for massive scale. Because ‘mas- two percent growth. of other low-power wide-area (LPWA) net- sive’ is the word in IoT circles; it is implicit working technologies – notably non-cellu- in analyst forecasts and specified in cellular lar Sigfox and LoRaWAN, which have had standards. a run on ‘massive’ IoT while the cellular The incoming 5G ‘ecosystem’ – for once, industry has pulled its socks up, rolling the term is useful, to describe a multi-fac- out NB-IoT and LTE-M, the twin LTE-based eted fifth-generation cellular tech sup- low-power IoT technologies, as the fore- posed to get under the skin of the global runners for 5G-era mMTC. economy – presents a three-tier family of Importantly, these technological stand- specifications, including a go-faster ver- ards are being pushed against, as well, to sion of mobile broadband (eMBB), already reduce cost and bring scale. here, an industrial-grade variant scheduled But is IoT ‘massive’, yet? It looks pretty big for some time after 2022/23 (URLLC), and already, propped up by these proprietary a low-power machine technology (mMTC) LPWA technologies. Depending on who designed to kit-out most of those forecasts. you talk to (trust), the current run-reports This last acronymical spec, defined five say IoT connections will go from 7.6 billion years ago in Release 13 of the 5G NR stand- in 2019 to 24.1 billion in 2030 (Transforma ard, declines as ‘massive machine-type Insights), or else double between 2019 and

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First cases – asset tracking has so far focused on expensive goods, whether high-value single items like cars (below left) or high-value cargoes, such as container-loads (above) / (Images: 123rf)

2025, to land at about 24 billion (GSMA Intelligence). Analysys Mason is more cau- tious: numbers will grow annually by about Every (forecast) picture tells a story a fifth to finish up at 5.3 billion in 2028. Who is right? Because no one agrees; connections shipments Latest forecasts about IoT connections vary wildly (see which is the trouble with crystal-gazing, below, left), and likely depend on how you count IoT; what is clear is the tracking sector is tipped for strong growth, and of course. Except there is consensus across cellular IoT and BLE will enjoy most of it. the stats and specs that it is going to be massive, and an argument to say it already 100% 217% is so. A billion is a billion, after all, and growth growth smartphone sales, by comparison, have - GSMA - Transforma 34% 142% stalled at about two percent growth per growth growth 32% 26% - ABI - ABI annum. Plus, the definition of ‘IoT-connect- growth growth 51% - ABI - ABI ed’ as directly-linked to the internet (IP) ex- growth cludes the whole IEEE 802.15.4 short-range - ABI sector. proprietary cellular positioning networking In particular, the in-building market is IoT Tracking LPWA BLE being riddled with low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) sensors at a faster-rate than the IoT sector is deploying gateways to carry their are networking ‘things’? There is a mad ar- Vodafone, which divides IoT in two: into payloads online. Look at the business be- ray of technologies in play, and boundaries tracking and monitoring. There is really ing done with Bluetooth in warehouses, are easily blurred; the terminology can be nothing else to it, it says. The discipline factories, and offices; its backers are shoot- stretched to cover the mass ‘sensorization’ grew out of connecting vehicles and vend- ing for 32 percent and 26 percent annual (eughh) of the broad enterprise sector. It is ing machines, and then smart meters, and growth on positioning and networking de- a jungle out there, and (the) jungle is mas- used to be called machine-to-machine vices in the period to 2024 – to over 1.5 bil- sive – as the old 1990s music scene would (M2M) communications; the difference is lion units, from zero a couple of years ago. tell us. low-power networking is being served by And what about Zigbee and Thread, and But what about asset tracking, to re- dedicated infrastructure, and costs have all the other short-range technologies that turn to the start? It’s a jungle, too. Just ask plummeted.

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Phil Skipper, head of global IoT business management in manufacturing, hospital development at Vodafone, comments: asset tracking, ATM remote tracking, and “With IoT, you basically want to know where freight monitoring. “Those are the ones the thing is, and what it’s doing – and one that come to mind. But if we are adamant, is achieved by asset tracking and the other we could probably list another dozen-or- by remote monitoring. So tracking is one so use cases that might also be considered of the two main applications for IoT, and asset tracking.” it’s one of the oldest. But it has tended to IDC calculates the IoT market was worth be limited to the high end, around either $685 billion in 2019, of which about 15 per- high-value items or high-value shipments, cent, or $86 billion, went on these six mar- with lots in the same container.” ket sub-segments. The total market will Anecdotally, analyst house IDC suggests grow at a compound rate of 11.3 percent as much as 80-90 percent of it can be re- per year in the period to 2024, the fore- duced to tracking. “I mean, if you’re consid- cast says; growth in these tracking ering workers as an asset, then you have disciplines will be lower in the pretty much everything covered,” com- same period, at 9.8 percent. ments Laszlo Toth, research manager at the 15% It is a big chunk, then, but firm. IDC breaks the IoT market down into – of the IoT market hardly a catch-all in this nar- is focused on 70-odd individual use cases, plus some six key asset rowed-down segmentation. “convenient others”; asset tracking, by it- tracking What gives? Because the self, does not feature. segments story is supposed to be that But, then, asset tracking is a parent cat- asset tracking is the great en- egory for a number of them. Toth reels off Moo-vement – animal tracking is one of IDC’s six core gine for IoT, which will propel the half a dozen: space management, agricul- tracking categories; monitoring farming supplies is a key sector to massive scale. Those statistics do ture and animal tagging, production asset focus for pharma firm Bayer (see below) not appear to tell that story, quite. Toth, The ‘table stakes’ for digital change

harmaceuticals and life sciences “team that got Monsanto He adds: “Most of my IoT firm Bayer says it has asset track- and AWS built up in the IoT goes on raw materials into ing pretty well covered, by now. space”, he says. But its name the factory. The MES cap- Such fundamental IoT disciplines has changed, along with its tures them as they change representP the ‘table stakes’ in the wider dig- remit, with the ‘IoT’ moni- state through the manufac- ital-change game, it reckons. ker dropped altogether. It turing, and our inventory Michael Swindler is in charge of Bayer’s is now called the ‘Connect management systems cap- operations platform, which effectively Team’. Swindler says: “We ture everything as they are translates to its entire supply chain. He are trying to expand now packaged and palletised, oversees the work of seven different teams, into AR/VR, wearables, and and our transportation sys- including the company’s ‘connected sup- all kinds of spaces beyond IoT. That’s the tem is enabled with GPS to track inventory ply chain’, which “goes over the top of scope of the platform.” as it goes into distribution. everything”, and gets regulated by ERP into IoT has become just another aspect of “On the inbound side, we actually slap de- its factories, MES on the floor, and mostly every-day business, he says. “It is table vices into trucks, just because we deal with GPS-based tracking out into the world. stakes, now. The IoT platform aged into a lot of farmers’ trucks that are not from the The other six supply-chain functions, something that was no longer innovative. major trucking firms and don’t necessarily under this, are: planning, logistics, man- The IoT sector is a platform space, not an in- come with GPS. Our IoT team has designed ufacturing, asset management, order-to- novation space. That is why we rebranded, GPS devices that stick in trucks to show the cash, and IoT. The IoT unit was the same so we could innovate outside of IoT.” flow of raw seed into our plants.”

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“Asset tracking was the first use case IoT existed for; it TRACKING CASE #1 is a fairly mature and well developed market, and so FedEx + BLE – tracking dynamic growth is harder to achieve. A lot of newer IoT technologies are geared vaccine shipments towards other use cases. All edEx has introduced a new Blue- traditional package scanning protocols, the same, the growth for asset tooth based asset tracking system said FedEx. As well as positioning data, tracking is still very high” in time for anticipated shipping of the company suggested other environ- COVID-19 vaccines, as well as for mental data will also be available, such as Laszlo Toth otherF emergency pharmaceuticals and for temperature, humidity, and vibration. research manager, IDC medical supplies. Customers in the aero- Customers will be able to “proactively” space and retail sectors will also be able to monitor and protect shipments, including like Skipper, reasons that asset tracking is access location data from the new tracking cold-chain storage, thermal blankets, and the oldest trade in the M2M market, and system, from initial launch in the US. temperature controlled containers, it said. suggests IDC’s six-strong grouping leans Its new SenseAware ID solution uses a It is unclear whether the solution also towards legacy tracking disciplines, which compact lightweight sensor to transmit relies upon GPS and / or cellular position- congregate around high-value goods. location data every two seconds over a ing for outdoor connectivity, when out of “It was the first use case IoT existed for; Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection. range of BLE beacons and Wi-Fi hotspots. it is a fairly mature and well developed The signal is received by BLE beacons in The initial roll-out will see SenseAware market, already, and so dynamic growth the FedEx Express network in the US, and ID sensors applied to next-day (First Over- is harder to achieve. A lot of newer IoT transmitted to the cloud via Wi-Fi access night) FedEx Express shipments in the US. technologies are geared towards other use points, or other wired or wireless gateway Customers in the healthcare, aerospace, cases. All the same, the growth for asset devices. and retail industries will receive access tracking is still very high in the forecast SenseAware ID sensors are tracked hun- to the new location data from November period,” he says. But dynamism is cascad- dreds of times, versus dozens of times with 2020. ing through the whole market, including in tracking cases, as Toth’s counterparts at ABI Research note. Sensor devices are getting smaller, cheaper, and smarter driving cost downwards, and innovation upwards, and volumes outwards, towards both massive scale and punchier functionality. Ship- ments of asset trackers will increase by more than 50 percent annually through 2024, says ABI. Growth will come as the discipline moves from tracking of high value goods into low-value high-volume markets, which will quickly account for most shipment numbers. Even more massive scale is just around the corner, the argument goes, just as sure as technological innovation endures – and the jungle of technologies in play carve out and multiply new kinds of assets to be tracked.

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2 | Global pandemic and supply-chain regulation – the spurs for massive IoT No one wants to say it, but the IoT space at large, and the asset tracking space in particular, is booming because of Covid-19

ut it is not just about the march of “People have realised just global supply chains as markets have shut technology – that trackers are get- down independently of each other. Intermit- ting smaller and cheaper, and more how much insecurity is in tently, this has forced crucial links out of the clever in even their low-level func- the supply chain – a lack of chain altogether, and a best-effort shuffling Btionality. Outside aspects have coalesced of the rest in order to cover the gaps. visibility and they quickly around sensor-based tracking, as well. We “The market is hotting up, and a big part of should consider a couple of these, according sprawl all over the place. that is the fallout from Covid-19, accel- to their sudden disruptive impact, if not their Supply chains need to erating the trend towards digitis- historical order. The first, then, is the corona- be somehow brought ing the supply chain,” comments virus (Covid-19) pandemic, of course, which 21K Tancred Taylor, analyst at ABI has obliged society to track social distancing together, and under trackers to track Research. “People have realised to get back to work. control.” 200m Covid-19 just how much insecurity is in Covid-19 has turned people, categorically, face masks – so the supply chain – a lack of vis- says Sigfox into assets, and the subjects of tracking; it Tancred Taylor ibility and they quickly sprawl all has provided the IoT market with an inad- research analyst, ABI Research over the place. Supply chains need vertent fillip, even as whole industrial sectors to be somehow brought together, and have gone into lockdown for most of 2020. under control.” Asset tracking technologies “There has been a change in the market. On provide visibility, and foster dynamism. one hand we have these Covid-19 track-and- In connection, tracking deals have been trace apps, and on the other whole industries signed around Covid-19 shipments. Arguably have been closed down. But, generally, we the most high-profile of these so far involves are seeing brand new use cases – the govern- FedEx, which has introduced a BLE tracking ment tracing apps, but also because schools system in time for shipping of vaccines, as and businesses want to track proximity as well as for other emergency pharmaceuticals well,” says Michael Amman, global head of in- and medical supplies (see page XX). Custom- dustrial application marketing at IoT module ers in aerospace and retail will also be able maker u-blox. to access location data from the new system, “ln the medium term, we expect asset from initial launch in the US. tracking will be the sector with the highest Robert Carter, executive vice president and growth,” he adds. The impact of Covid-19 chief information officer at FedEx, remarks: has been three-fold, at least. Firstly, it has “Package tracking and visibility are more highlighted inefficiencies in interconnected Face masks – big tracking deals abound (Image 123rf) important now than ever, as businesses have

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become increasingly reliant on timely deliv- primarily, and mustering. Right now, with eries. [This solution] was designed to give Covid-19, those are the top two, plus room customers the precise level of tracking... to utilisation.” But the applications quickly optimise their supply chains and make any multiply, he says, as with any first-look at IoT necessary adjustments during the journey of infrastructure. Anecdotally, he tells a story their shipments.” about a manufacturing client approaching French firm Sigfox, pushing the ultra low- HID about a mustering solution for 2,000 cost IoT story hardest, perhaps, claims it has staff. signed with one unnamed European gov- “The firm has four buildings on a large ernment to deploy 21,000 trackers, in order campus, and never knows where anyone is. to follow 200 million face masks – “from fac- They were ready to spend hundreds of thou- tories in Asia, onto container ships, and into sands on big mustering towers, networked various ports in Europe.” and wired, out in the parking lot. But we A little sheepishly, perhaps, Ajay Rane, the talked about our solution, and they realised company’s vice president for global busi- they could track visitors, as well – instead of ness development, reflects: “Without saying signing in the visitors book and handing out anything good about Covid-19, it has been badges. And they said, ‘Hey, can we do time something of a blessing-in-disguise, the way and attendance for contractors, as well?’ things have turned out. We have uncovered “It was taking staff an hour to “Because they were badging-in and then many more opportunities we didn’t know we vanishing – for a couple of hours, or on smoke had, with some of the largest corporations track down beds – and often breaks every 30 minutes. And of course they in the world, and most of it is around asset it was nurses, on $20 per hour could. And the next step, of course, was Cov- tracking.” or more. It was adding up: five id-19, [and a solution] to know who gets sick, The second major impact of Covid-19, as and when, and who they are in touch with. above, has been around space (and people) hours per month, multiplied So it turned into contact tracing, as well. management, particularly in the workplace across 10 buildings. And with Once you start, it quickly snowballs.” – in offices, factories, shops, schools, and uni- Covid-19, beds and pumps and The third impact of Covid-19 on IoT has versities. In general, and as Rane suggests, been with conventional asset tracking; the the sense in tech circles is that, even as long- ventilators are all in demand, of difference, after the pandemic broke, was time industrial IoT customers have locked- course.” where the interest was coming from: the down and dropped-off, business has picked Taylor Breihan, global business development healthcare sector, itself, as well as in sundry up elsewhere – and the sector’s buoyancy work, retail, and hospitality venues for prox- will be reasserted, and even raised, in the manager, HID Global imity tracing. But conversations in healthcare medium term. have spiked around tracking of physical as- The workplace is the heartland for Aus- It’s not just Covid-19, he notes; it is the way sets. It has been a trend, anyway, says Brei- tin-based HID Global, which specialises in of things, when emergencies and disasters han, as Wi-Fi has been found-out as a tool for biometric security credentials and access are so rife. real-time positioning. control. The pandemic has seen the firm He adds: “The situation is heightened in He has another couple of anecdotes, with accelerate its offering beyond passive RFID the US, where there are a lot of emergency more unnamed customers; with hospitals in tags – well deployed in passports and green events – shootings, fires, any kind of natural New Jersey and New York. The first was los- cards, and in access control in real-estate and disaster. In those scenarios, knowing who is ing $50,000 each quarter from stolen med- retail – to drive new indoor zoning and trac- in a building, and where they are is a pow- ical equipment, he says. “They knew what ing applications. erful thing.” The term, increasingly familiar in they were losing, but they didn’t know when These new applications use active RFID civilian circles, is ‘mustering’; HID is offering a or how they were losing it. Because they tags and beacons, and are mostly based on hybrid RFID solution with a passive ID badge couldn’t track their assets.” The answer was BLE. “With Covid-19, the number of enquir- to give access to buildings, together with an to put BLE beacons on the equipment; the ies coming in to us around people tracking active beacon for “tons of metadata” about $200,000 annual saving quickly paid for the in buildings has increased by 200 – almost what goes on inside. installation. 300 – percent. And that’s across all vertical “Mustering has been a very focused work- Meanwhile, hospital beds were going markets,” comments Taylor Breihan, global flow,” says Breihan. “The things facility man- walkabout in New York, misplaced in corners business development manager at the firm. agers need to cover are visitor management, and corridors. “They were just being left. But

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Equipment– hospital beds and medical equipment has been in short dupply during the Covid-19p pandemic, often just because it cannot be easily located; asset tracking solutions are helping hospitals to maximize resources / (Images: 123rf) Bluetooth device shipments – by vertical market 451m (Source: Bluetooth SIG) (x4.6 growth) 335m 2024 (x4.2 growth) what’s the value in tracking a bed? It turns 234m (x5 growth) out it was taking staff up to an hour to track 2020 them down – and often it was left to nurses, on $20 per hour or more, to look for them. It 74m 88m 95m was adding up: five hours per month, multiplied across 10 buildings. And with Covid-19, Smart cities Smart industry Smart buildings pumps and ventilators are in demand, of course.” The thing with healthcare is its relation- LoRaWAN or public/private cellular gate- Automatic registration on BLE is anoth- ship with technology is entrenched, already, ways; everyone says so, it seems. er key function, enabling products to be and complex. Breihan reckons 80 percent “Wi-Fi is only used because it is the older scanned en masse on pallets. of Wi-Fi-based indoor positioning, offering technology, pushed by older multi-billion The release of state funds for the health- a real-time location service (RTLS), is with dollar companies. Now, with BLE systems at care sector has invigorated its pursuit of healthcare. This is because Wi-Fi is so wide- half the price, we are finding dozens of work- more novel and efficient digital technolo- ly deployed, he reasons. But Wi-Fi beacons, flows that create value for clients inside and gies. Very quickly, glancing only at the US for triangulating between all these access outside of healthcare. That is changing the and Europe, investment is coming from points, are expensive ($100-$120, compared world,” says Breihan. the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Eco- with $25-$30 for BLE, apparently). Amman at u-blox comments: “BLE has nomic Security) Act and the proposed Next They are also power hungry, and liable to seen significant growth, notably with Cov- Generation EU recovery bill. With targeted misfire. “Wi-Fi struggles to determine even id-19 tracing – so there are a lot of new reinforcements, these funding instruments what floor a beacon is on. The density of BLE applications. The enhancements in stretch to $2.2 trillion and €1.85 trillion, re- access points is not high enough, even in the standard, as well, have extended the spectively. hospitals.,” he says. For indoor tracking, all coverage range, from about 300 metres The question of funding, and state in- roads appear to be optimised with BLE sen- to one or even two kilometres, and intro- tervention, leads to the second aspect of sors, whether the data is hauled-out on ex- duced angle-of-arrival and things like that. this coalescence around asset tracking as isting Wi-Fi infrastructure, or over local-area Which has greatly enabled new use cases.” a key lever for digital-change in society:

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regulation, in particular around pharma- food-safety regulation, requiring anyone ceuticals and food stuff in the supply chain. handling perishable items to have cold The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) storage. By 2022, we will see the full impact has recently issued ‘blueprints’ for distribu- of those policies, which require periodic re- tion of pharmaceuticals (under 2013 DSC- cording and monitoring of items in transit SA) and food (under 2011 FSMA), which from distribution to warehousing, to re- both put IoT at the heart of the action. tail – and goods to be discarded if certain Taylor comments: “Most regions are temperature ranges are breached, and au- updating regulation on pharmaceuticals dit-proof that they’ve been discarded. and food, requiring more data and more He adds: “We are already starting to see frequent check-ins; they’re pretty much that in Germany, where we have had success ubiquitous.” The same kind of tech-orient- with retail establishments in large compa- ed rule-making for tracking the supply of nies. This is the first wave, squarely focused goods has been introduced for cannabis (in on [goods that are transported already with] 2019, in the US and Canada), cigarettes (in temperature monitoring and recording… 2019, in Europe), and maritime operations But probably 10-20 times that amount goes generally. “Compliance will be a big field for without any temperature monitoring, and asset tracking to address.” that’s where the big volume increase will Rane rejoins: “The common thread is Deep freeze – cold storage is a key use case / (123rf) come in the tracking sector.”

TRACKING CASE #2 Michelin + Sigfox – tracking container shipments rench tire manufacturer Michelin interactions and more than 25 entities, in- has implemented a solution for cluding freight-forwarding, in-land trans- tracking sea-freight containers, portation, port handling, customs, and based on compatriot connectivity shipping. Real-time visibility of container Ffirm Sigfox’s narrowband IoT network. The assets has been difficult to achieve, so new tracking solution provides freighters far, they said, leading to inefficient supply with a geolocation fix on their containers, chains and, ultimately, to failing customer going from their point of departure to service. their final point of call. They suggest their ‘real-time’ tracking It also offers alerts about delays, and is solution will improve container schedul- being integrated with temperature and ing by a margin of up to 40 percent, and tamper monitoring, as well as geo-fencing. reduce “inventory ruptures”, knocking The set up includes IoT trackers, low-pow- deliveries off course, by up to 25 percent. er networking, plus the analytics platform Michelin is offering the solution, which it to gather and interpret data. Sigfox said co-developed with Sigfox and Argon Con- that the new offering can be used with sulting over 12 months, to third parties, as high numbers of containers. well. Sigfox has busily pursued asset track- The duo claim international container ing deals in the automotive, pharmaceuti- shipments can involve more than 200 cals, luxury goods, aerospace sectors. Rollout– Michelin is putting trackers on cargoes of tyres

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DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: SHORT + LONG RANGE IOT DIGITAL FACTORY SOLUTIONS: AUGMENTED REALITY

APRIL 2020 JULY 2020 NDUSTRIAL I- and the rise of the workers AR How augmented reality is transforming Better together- production, and raising the influence of workers in the robot age by James Blackman, editor, Enterprise IoT Insights

DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: SMART LIGHTING

H RT MARCH 2020 S O SMART LIGHTING as a ONG PLATFORM & – for smart buildings and smart cities, and how use cases, strategies and solutions compare by James Blackman RANGE Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights IOT DIGITAL FACTORY SOLUTIONS: AGILE INNOVATION – the sudden clamour for hybrid IoT and why two IoT technologies

are better than one CROSS NG THE by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights IT OT D VIDE DECEMBER 2019 from ‘co-creation’ to ‘co-configuration’ – and the challenge to bring industrial IoT to scale by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Check out the library of in-depth editorial reports from EIoT December 2019 Digital Factory Solutions - Co-Creation.indd 1 19/12/2019 11:11 Enterprise IoT Insights online. All of them are free to download. See the back page for the latest on the Enterprise IoT Insights editorial calendar. enterpriseiotinsights.com/channels/reports 11 FEATURE REPORT

3 | Smarter power usage – the art of mixing and ditching tracking tech The laser-focus on cost has brought innovation at the low end, with trackers optimised to make maximum use of the minimum tech

ith cold-chain storage, we are and cheapness in pursuit of massive IoT. getting into Vodafone’s other “There is a lot of multi-mode connectivity – IoT category: remote moni- Hybrid IoT – cost and not just relying on GNSS, but on cellular toring. With advances in IoT, and performance and Wi-Fi, and BLE indoors,” says Taylor. Wthe lines are blurring between tracking and Daniel Quant is vice president of strate- monitoring as two functional aspects of the gic development at US-based MultiTech, same discipline, geared around what might a manufacturer which, as per its name,

100Mbps Wi-Fi 5G be termed ‘remote asset-management’. Am- 4G / LTE spreads itself across a range of connectivity man at u-blox describes the scene: “With types. He comments: “The market is moving BLE time and position, these other measure- 1Mbps towards multiple radio technologies in the ments – temperature, vibration, accelera- LTE-M same devices – so you have Wi-Fi transceiv- tion, whatever – gain context and become 802.15.4 NB-IoT ers in there to sniff out the SSIDs, and BLE Rate / power Rate meaningful.” 100kbps and even LoRa to triangulate with beacon We are also going outdoors, and out of MIOTY / TS-UNB devices, and cellular or LoRaWAN to back-

1kbps LoRaWAN range of short-range wireless tech, which is haul the data.” Sigfox being deployed with tracking infrastructure There are ways to arrange them in a sin- in hospitals and other indoor venues. This 10m 100m 1km 10km gle hardware design, and to prioritise them narrative will not be tripped up by the rela- Range so the device shifts ‘smartly’ between. “You tive merits of wide-area IoT technologies for write a policy to rank and define position Cost: Low High outdoor tracking, just because Enterprise accuracy versus power consumption – so IoT Insights has run the rule over them al- the device defaults to the least battery-con- ready. (See the LPWA knockout match, be- animate data trails around new asset-types. suming technology, and moves up the rank- tween the cellular set in the red corner and The key has been to budget this light-touch ing if that’s not good enough. The gubbins the noisy, warring non-cellular brigade in innovation on low margins and high vol- about which radio to use can be dictated in the blue.) umes. a configuration screen,” says Quant. But we should consider short- and long- This trend towards hybrid IoT, making He adds: “If accuracy is everything, and range technologies together, briefly, in the bedfellows of short and long-range wire- power usage does not matter, you can set context of the shift towards massive IoT. Be- less, is the subject of another long-form En- those terms. If you’re looking for the ma- cause the new smartness, here, is not really terprise IoT Insights report, available here. chine-that-goes-beep in a hospital, you about higher-grade embedded comput- But it is worth briefly introducing outside don’t want to know it is vaguely over there, ing; it is about combining them efficiently commentary on this subject, as it makes you want to know which room it is in – it and applying them creatively, in order to clear the correlation between smartness is no good being directed to the room

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underneath, on the floor below in an emergency. But it can be quite dynamic, so you can move the index between the position TRACKING CASE #3 and power ratings, even in the life of a product.” This new dynamism, to enable asset-own- Nafta Frigo + NB-IoT ers to shift through the gears on location accuracy, brings longer-life to tracking devices, affording smaller and cheaper batter- – cold-chain monitoring ies, which opens new use cases. A geofence can be devised to spark the gear change; exico-based logistics firm The solution dovetails with BLE and Wi-Fi the tracking function might be practical- Nafta Frigo specializes in indoors, as well. The point was to enable ly dormant in a piece of equipment on a cold chain warehousing and a live feed, via cellular, to detect spikes in building site, for example, and triangulate distribution. It has worked temperature in transit. between macro cells when the item is need- Mwith California-based tracking provider The alternative, to download data from ed, and satellites when it goes off site. Roambee to deliver reliable ‘real-time’ cold sensor devices on arrival, is not an option; “It is a very adaptive model, for sure,” chain temperature monitoring for long- the information about spoilage comes too comments Quant. The shift to lower-cost haul shipments, including new storage late, and products are discarded, as they trackers has necessitated a move away from and transport monitoring in ‘deep freeze’ would be without any monitoring at all. power-hungry GNSS (global navigation sat- conditions. The Roambee solution also established an ellite system) based positioning. Wi-Fi ‘sniff- The company’s success with cold-chain automated analytics system to issue live ing’, which does away with the receiver unit, warehousing and short-haul logistics had alerts about temperature ‘excursions’, as is effective in outdoor urban environments seen demand spike for longer-haul deliv- well as off-track deliveries in case of theft. where MAC (media access control) address- eries, and its offering to expand from fro- In both cases, it has enabled Nafta Frigo es are as commonplace as house numbers; zen food shipments to deep freeze prod- to take immediate action to secure and cellular positioning, still considered with ucts. Its rising demand and widening remit preserve frozen foods, pharmaceuticals, suspicion, has value, too. forced it to engage with third-party trans- and other temperature-controlled prod- Chip-maker Nordic Semiconductor is an- port and warehousing providers, as well. ucts. Roambee’s cellular-based tracking other playing the field, a step further back Roambee provided a cellular-based solution is well deployed in mobile oper- in the stack than MultiTech. Kristian Sæther, tracker and temperature logger for the ator channels, including with US carrier product manager for cellular IoT at the firm, company to record and send GPS loca- AT&T, Canadian operator Rogers Commu- says GNSS will give five-metre accuracy and tion data and ambient temperature data nications, and German outfit Deutsche cellular will give 50-metre accuracy. “GNSS is over either a 2G or an NB-IoT network. Telekom. great for tracking cars, to know where they are on the road, continuously. But you don’t always want or need that accuracy – just to know you’re in the right campus or city, and to know once an hour or once a day. But that is it, in many cases.” Quant is a little doubtful; the industry has been looking at ways to bring enhanced positioning to cellular for two decades already, he notes, and lots has been done in the meantime to reduce the impact of GNSS on the battery budget. Techniques for increas- ing NB-IoT positioning accuracy, based on the same as for assisted-GNSS (A-GNSS) and Wi-Fi, and dating back to LTE 3GPP Release 9, were introduced a couple of years back in Release 14 (in 2017). Cold storage – cellular IoT is being deployed to monitor warehouses and trucks / (Image: Nafta Frigo) These included a method for ‘downlink

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multilateration’ (triangulation) called ‘ob- served time-difference of arrival’ (TDOA), which derives the location of a device by cross-calculating time-stamped signal strengths (RSSI) and signal directions (‘angle “GNSS systems are in of arrival’) from multiple eNodeB stations the $1,000-range; we in the network. The rise of beamforming, offer a much lower focusing the signal towards specific receivers, has multiplied the antennas in play, and price point with much hence the ways to run the maths. higher accuracy – and Still, it is mostly talk, and workshopping, it combines with suggests Quant. “Twenty years later, we are still discussing [these cellular] techniques. cellular to backhaul Which is not to say it’s not happening, but the data and BLE we are yet to see it in widespread deploy- to connect with ment. In a macro environment, most devices are shipped with GNSS, even though the customer’s GNSS drains the battery,” he says. The point phone.” is, with dynamic controls in the backend, hybrid antenna arrays in singular IoT units Michael Amman, global cover a multitude of wins. head of industrial “At this point, devices need reliable data application marketing , location accuracy that may vary depending u-blox upon urgency and location. Multiple radio technologies enable [positioning] indoors and outdoors, and in [built-up] city blocks – down to sub metre accuracy,” says Quant. He notes the applicability of LoRa-based positioning, which MultiTech promotes, as well. “GNSS, BLE, LoRa, RFID, and cellular operator wants to optimise supply. And Either way, gear changes drain the tank, systems have all come a long way to doing for that, they need high-precision to locate and dictate whether the use case is even that together.” bikes very accurately,” says Amman. viable. In asset tracking, as discussed, the On GNSS, Amman at u-blox notes re- But the u-blox offer is notable because it king-metric is cost; as the sector reaches al-time kinematic (RTK) positioning has brings the price point for the positioning for higher volumes, the calculation turns brought even higher precision to satellite system down, as well. “GNSS systems are on ever-finer margins. Breihan at HID com- positioning by using the ‘phase’ of the sig- in the $1,000-range; we offer a much lower pares semi-comatose (passive) RFID track- nal’s carrier wave and running a deal of price point with much higher accuracy – ing in retail outlets to hyper-critical (active) processing over the top to make real-time and it goes, as well, with cellular connectiv- RFID tracking in hospitals; again, the same corrections; RTK brings GNSS accuracy to ity to backhaul the data and BLE to connect scenarios are always quoted, as he fixes on centimetre-level, compared to metre-lev- with the customer’s phone.” stray Covid-19 equipment. el with straight positioning with GPS, On cellular, there is some incidental disa- “A blood analyser machine, no bigger GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and the other greement; Sæther at Nordic reckons cellular than a shoe, costs $10,000; I want to know national GNSS systems. will, in the end, govern the idling position in where that is, all the time – and whether or The Swiss-based firm – which started most tracking cases, as well, even if GNSS is not it has been stolen. ‘Right, so it’s in the two decades ago, making miniaturised retained as the sport function in the gear- operating theatre, or in room 12 on floor GPS receivers for the old M2M market, and box. “Most tracking products will default two.’ But if I am tracking 50,000 t-shirts, I carved a name in automotive tracking, be- to cellular positioning, and go onto GNSS don’t want an expensive beacon. Passive fore expanding with cellular, Bluetooth, and when more granular data is required.” He RFID tags are cheap – 50 cents, each. They Wi-Fi modules – is enabling bike sharing comes up with the same use case about let you know these things are inside a cer- with RTK-based GNSS positioning. “The city tracking equipment inside and outside of a tain perimeter; you just don’t know where doesn’t want bikes lying around, and the geofence on a building site. they are inside the perimeter.”

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4 | The sliding rule on cost versus value and the promise of dollar trackers The lower the cost of the tracker, the higher the volume of them – and tracker prices are in the bargain basement, already

here is a slide-rule, it seems, to de- is working with two chipset makers on dol- fine the cost of the tracker versus the lar-priced IoT devices for tracking low-value cost of the asset. But it is unwritten, high-volume assets. and nonlinear, based only on the A year ago, it distributed $1 ‘button’ pro- Tperceived value of the goods. “There isn’t totypes to 1,500 attendees at its annual Sig- a rule of thumb,” says Skipper at Vodafone. fox Connect event in Singapore. Originally “But you’re not going to put a €500 tracker presented as panic buttons on keychains, on a €1 box. You just have to look at each capable of sending alerts via the Sigfox net- case; you might go to €10 for something work in case of emergency, the product has worth €1,000 and €300 for something worth since been developed and commercialised, €30,000 – between a tenth and hundredth is it claims. China-based semiconductor firm my gut feel.” CMOSTEK Microelectronics is offering track- What do others think? Are there any ing modules based on the same technology. nominal thresholds to open new use cases? The CMOSTEK device is geared towards “Customers are generally okay with $30-$40 pallet tracking in the supply chain, and in for a tracker, maybe,” says Sæther. “But that the postal market, notably; Sigfox has con- is all-in – the SIM, the data plan, the battery, tracts for tracking roll containers with the the PCB, and everything. At the same time, likes of DHL in Germany, Posti in Finland, customers say that when it gets to $20 they and An Post in Ireland. A second unnamed will go from a few hundred thousand to a chipset vendor is launching a tracking de- few million a year – and when it gets to $15 vice later this year (2020), it claims again. The the volume goes to five million, and when it new product will be available for $1-$1.50, goes to under $10 it will go to 50 million. The according to Sigfox, in both disposable and growth rate is exponential.” reusable formats. Which is, again, how the market grows Rane at Sigfox remarks: “These chipset massive. But for that, every component part vendors have made interesting modifica- must come down in price, says Sæther, or tions to the original button in order to save else be jettisoned altogether. This is how Sig- cost, and they are coming in at these price- fox plans to do it, and to shore up its position points – not $2, and not 99 cents, but some- in the fragmented IoT networking space. where in between.” The prototypes dispense The France-based firm, which claims 16.3 with a radio receiver, for example, leaving million ‘connections’ on its networks, says it Rane – dollar trackers from Sigfox are on their way them as transmit-only ‘unidirectional’ units.

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Counterfeits – Sigfox says its dollar trackers will enable new tracking use cases to fight supply-chain fraud around fake batteries and ink cartridges / (Image: 123rf)

“They can send a message to the network, “These parts are being massive volumes, apparently. but cannot receive one back.” Rane suggests dollar-range trackers might In some cases – where network coverage swapped for fakes; companies be fixed into laptop batteries or ink car- is strong, or can be densified to be made want a solution to protect tridges in OEM products to guard against strong – radio transmissions can go “several against that, for $1-$2. tampering with original parts in distribution decibels” lower and the front-end power am- channels. Sigfox is already engaged, he says, plifier can be ejected as well. Rane argues: “A Because that unit is worth with one electronics manufacturer, selling warehouse, say, is a controlled environment, $10 or $20, and they are liable unconfirmed electronics devices with swap- and you don’t need to transmit at the full every time a fake part finds its pable parts, that wants 20-30 million cheap limit for tracking inventory on site. You can tracking devices per year to police the sup- reduce the cost further by removing the way into their devices.” ply chain for counterfeit parts. amplifier – the bill-of-materials will reduce Ajay Rane, vice president of global He comments: “In certain by half.” business development, Sigfox markets, these replaceable The new low-cost tracking devices will last $1 parts are being swapped for about three years in pallets, to match shelf- – the magic price fake parts. These companies life of the pallets themselves, and weeks or fanciful; even the firm acknowl- mark for Sigfox want a solution to protect months in certain ultra-budget cases, with edges its targets are aspiration- trackers, potential- against that, for $1-$2. Be- power to issue “hundreds of messages” until al. But it is counting on low-cost ly leading the race cause that replaceable unit is to the bottom the battery dies. So the company says, any- tracking for a semblance of mas- worth $10 or $20, and they are way. Both disposable single-usage versions sive scale. liable every time a fake part finds and reusable versions with replaceable bat- Its new ultra-cheap sensor platform will its way into their devices. If it doesn’t teries will be available, it said. offer tracking and security in the supply work, or doesn’t last, they get complaints If they ever see the light of day, they will chain, crossing into door and venue access – and every call is pricier than the original shift the needle on IoT connectivity, and controls, as well. Without revealing client part, and damages their brand and reputa- asset tracking in particular, says Sigfox. The use cases, Sigfox suggests the units will be tion, as well.” company has a stated target of a billion con- attached to vehicle parts and also into con- As with all Sigfox tales, the aspiration nections by 2025, through the same period sumer and enterprise electronics to protect is compelling, and usefully describes as ABI forecasts a 50 percent annual jump in against tampering and counterfeiting. The how the industry at large rationalises its shipments of trackers. The billion-target is electronics sector, in particular, will bring mind-boggling campaign for massive-scale

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connectivity, even if the solution itself is after that. “By far the largest number of con- questioned in some corners. Those ques- nections is currently on proprietary LPWA tions relate to Sigfox’s business model, in networks. But that is changing fast,” com- Four crucial particular, and its perceived rate of borrow- ments Tayor. “The proprietary stuff will still ing to fund its assault on the global have a big role to play, and see growth IoT market – and they come, no- of its own. But the cellular LPWA tracking terms ticeably, from rival companies segment is seeing considerably in the LoRa space. more, and will crossover in the RFID But this is not the forum for 82% next four years.” – of asset tracking that. The questions are also devices are being Amman at u-blox comments: Active or passive, radio-frequency ID around the viability of local- shipped for cellular “Proprietary technologies (RFID) tech uses electromagnetic fields ised connectivity solutions IoT networks work well in private networks to identify and track tags attached to within a globalised distribution and regional installations. But the objects. Passive tags are powered by market, and directed at both of gap to cellular has shrunk with NB- energy from radio waves intop the RFID these proprietary technologies, and come IoT and LTE-M, in terms of power and cost. reader; active tags are powered by a bat- from the cellular side of the LPWA debate. There is a benefit to standards-based tech- tery and have greater range. NFC, BLE, But we will take notice of these questions, nologies in licensed spectrum – because and even Wi-Fi (WPS) can be considered briefly, because ‘massive’ necessarily means they are reliable, and they scale. You want to active RFID technologies. global, because the chorus line is getting be able to track and configure a product in louder, and also because it offers a resolu- China and Australia. Most IoT devices will be GNSS tion to this narrative. connected on cellular in the future.” ABI reckons 82 percent of asset tracking The argument goes that such reliability GNSS stands for Global Navigation Sat- devices are currently being shipped for and scale should command, and justify, a ellite System, and is the general term NB-IoT or LTE-M networks. The pace of de- premium – and that cellular will never match to describe satellite-based positioning, ployments has accelerated, it says, with 154 dollar trackers. Sæther says: “Cellular will al- based on signal and timing data from networks supporting one or other of them. ways be higher-value than BLE and Sigfox, satellites. GPS is often used mistakenly The number of connections on cellular net- and whatever else. If we can divide the cost in its place;in fact GNSS describes all the works, including traditional 2G-through-5G, of cellular by 10, then we can divide those national satellite systems, including GPS will outrun the number on proprietary IoT others by 10 as well. But cellular is a more (US), Galileo (Europe), GLONASS (Russia) networks after 2023, it says; the number on complex product, and its value should be and BeiDou (China). cellular IoT, alone, will do the same shortly appreciated – in terms of quality-of-service, RTLS

Cellular – combining both tra- A real-time locating system (RTLS) is Distribution of ditional and low-power variants another general-purpose technology connectivity types – will overtake proprietary IoT specifically geared to track in ‘real time’; technologies some time after again, it uses tags and beacons, and (Source: ABI Research) 2023; cellular IoT will gain the relies on any number of technologies, upperhand, suddenly, in 2024. including UWB, Infrared, BLE, Zigbee, Traditional cellular (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G) 29% CAGR Wi-Fi (WPS), and various cellular technologies. RTLS is used commonly in Cellular IoT (LPWA) (NB-IoT, LTE-M) 143% CAGR manufacturing, warehouseing, healthcare – and sports analytics. Proprietary LPWA (LoRa, Sigfox, etc) 34% CAGR RTK

Real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning is a sat-nav technique to enhance position data from GNSS arrays, brining accuracy 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 down to centimetre-level.

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global functionality, and device manage- “Cellular is complex and its ment. The premium is hard to justify if you value should be appreciated – don’t make use of its benefits.” Nordic is very squarely in the cellular in terms of quality-of-service, camp, pairing NB-IoT and LTE-M with short- global functionality, and device range BLE et al; but Sæther is candid about management... [But] cellular the work needed to make cellular even a candidate in some tracking cases. “Cellular isn’t easy; it’s actually pretty isn’t easy; it’s actually pretty hard,” he says. hard – and more needs to be “More needs to be done with the network, done with the network, itself – itself – so you can change SIM profiles in software, and so you can go from Vodafone so you can change SIM profiles in one country to Verizon, in another, for ex- in software and roam globally.” ample. “Because there isn’t a global IoT roaming Kristian Sæther, product manager for agreement in place today. Customers ship cellular, Nordic Semiconductor these trackers with three or four SIMs. But you can’t go around changing SIMs. Roam- with millions of customers, all with the same He adds: “Those things remain challenges, ing agreements are harder to negotiate SIMs; they don’t know how to serve thou- because asset tracking is global by its na- because IoT devices put less data onto the sands of them, with thousands of SIMs, all ture. Those things have to be solved to gain network. And carriers are used to working with different needs.” massive scale.”

TRACKING CASE #4 Istanbul Airport + LoRaWAN – luggage and vehicle tracking urkish provider Skysens Teknolo- their position, status, or condition. Skysens ji (Skysens) has deployed a Lo- has deployed a LoRaWAN network across Ra-based solution for GPS-free the site; LoRa-based sensors have been tracking of vehicles, personnel, and attached to fixed infrastructure, as well Tluggage at the new Istanbul Airport. The as mobile assets, to help with predictive solution comprised a LoRaWAN network maintenance, asset monitoring, and to en- and 3,000 LoRa-based sensors, initially; the hance the efficiency of airport operations plan was to increase the sensor-count to -- and to make the airport ‘smart’. 10,000 by the time the site opened, earlier The network provides indoor and out- this year (2020), door connectivity and positioning; the Istanbul Airport has an area of 76.5 mil- position of trackers attached to vehicles, lion square metres, and serves about 100 personnel and luggage is triangulated by million passengers a year; it is projected bouncing signals off the LoRa base stations to expand capacity to cope with double in the LoRaWAN network. that number. The airport’s supervisory All data monitoring and analysis runs control and data acquisition (SCADA) sys- through Skysens’ cloud-based IoT plat- tems monitor infrastructure, but offer no form. The setup is available to other airport way to track or monitor assets, to check tenants and airline companies. Baggage – airports are tracking luggae with beacon tech

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Enterprise IoT – we have it covered. Through its Making Industry Smarter, Digital Factory Solu- tions, and Digital Industry Solutions report series, Enterprise IoT Insights brings you in-depth coverage and analysis of the key trends driving digital change. Click cover images to load reports.

DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: SHORT + LONG RANGE IOT DIGITAL FACTORY SOLUTIONS: AUGMENTED REALITY DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: SMART LIGHTING DIGITAL FACTORY SOLUTIONS: AGILE INNOVATION MAKING INDUSTRY SMARTER: METALS & MINING

JULY 2020 MARCH 2020 Better together - DIGGING SHORT SMART WITH OCTOBER 2019 APRIL 2020 LIGHTING CROSS NG THE DATA & ONG NDUSTRIAL as a RANGE I- and the rise of the workers AR PLATFORM IT OT IOT D VIDE DECEMBER 2019 – the sudden clamour for hybrid IoT How augmented reality is transforming – for smart buildings and smart cities, from ‘co-creation’ to ‘co-configuration’ how connecivity, analytics and and why two IoT technologies production, and raising the influence and how use cases, strategies – and the challenge to bring automation are transforming the are better than one of workers in the robot age and solutions compare mining industry by James Blackman by James Blackman, editor, Enterprise IoT Insights by James Blackman industrial IoT to scale by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights

DIGITAL FACTORY SOLUTIONS: ANALYTICS AND AI MAKING INDUSTRY SMARTER: PORTS & SHIPPING MAKING INDUSTRY SMARTER: ENERGY & POWER MAKING INDUSTRY SMARTER: AGRICULTURE & FARMING

JULY 2019 JUNE 2019 The promise KEEPING THE of smart SMA R T July 2019 LIGHTS ON farming and LPWA the challenge of P O R T S connectivity – WITH GREEN connectivity in IoT – who is POWER MAY 2019 SEPTEMBER 2019 Automation and intelligence winning what? Smart grids and smart meters – how AI – ON THE LINE with private LTE / 5G networks a matchup between LoRaWAN IoT is bringing order and intelligence how advanced analytics and artificial and Sigfox in the blue corner CONNECTING intelligence are transforming the and public network slices to distributed energy systems how Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights and NB-IoT and LTE-M in the red production line Report sponsor Report sponsor AGRICULTURE by James Blackman by James Blackman by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights by James Blackman by James Blackman SEP 2019 | FACTORY AI JUL 2019 | SMART PORTS JUL 2019 | LPWA NETWORKS JUN 2019 | SMART GRIDS MAY 2019 | SMART FARMING

MAKING INDUSTRY SMARTER: SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS

report series DIGITAL FACTORY NOVEMBER 2018 SOLUTIONS: HOW TO industrial BUY / SELL LTE FEBRUARY 2019 & A SMART MARCH 2019 5G AI & IOT CITY AUGUST 2018 FROM SUPPLY CHAIN - AT THE when to bring procurement Smart manufacturing TO DEMAND CHAIN industrial models to make asset management, predictive maintenance, how incoming cellular technologies CUTTING intelligence every city smart dynamic scheduling and other key use cases how IoT and AI are enabling the supply closer to the action by James Blackman by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights MAY 2019 MAY will transform smart manufacturing REPORT SPONSOR Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights chain to flex to changing demand EDGE REPORT SPONSOR by James Blackman by James Blackman by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights

enterpriseiotinsights.com/channels/reports 21 FEATURE REPORT

5 | Printable NB-IoT labels and the deal to make IoT

massive, f inally? Bayer has teamed up with Vodafone and Altair on a stick-on NB- IoT label that will bring new use cases and new value to tracking

ut this race-to-the-bottom has just few euros, suddenly, and not a few tens or a taken another turn, plunging us few hundreds of euros,” comments Skipper rapidly downwards and outwards. The smart label – at Vodafone. Pharmaceutical and life sciences He explains: “It breaks that glass ceil- companyB Bayer has announced a printable what’s in there? ing for asset tracking. The market was NB-IoT based tracking label, which goes for Design: Bayer, Vodafone, Arm, Altair, constrained, before; limited to tracking a couple of Euros, to monitor its products Murata of high-value goods. This changes that; it through the supply chain. Just to repeat: Hardware: Printable / recyclable moves it down to the next layer; it resets that is a couple of euros, we hear, and cel- battery, antenna, chip, sensors the parameters for mobile asset tracking, lular-based. At once, it seems like Sæther’s Software: Integrated SIM (iSIM), and it opens up a massive new market. It protestations have been met remotely configurable brings tracking into a completely different Bayer has worked with Vodafone and Connectivity: NB-IoT; 18 Vodafone NB- sphere. Arm on the project, along with chip maker IoT networks, plus global roaming The solution is clever. The label connects Altair Semiconductor and module maker Positioning: Cellular to the cellular network when it is torn or Murata. To Sæther’s point about remote Sensors: Temperature, movement cut, after printing and attaching to the software-defined provisioning; the smart Price: About €5 package. Vodafone has a ‘bootstrap’ deal label integrates cellular SIM (iSIM) func- Volume: 20,000 in PoC; five million in with Arm to provide the initial connectivity tionality as a layout on printable silicon, production on iSIM-based NB-IoT and LTE-M devices, into the communications module, along as well as fall-back in case of outages, to with a printable battery, microprocessor, antenna, modem, plus a couple of sensors. Vodafone provides the reference, Arm issues the blueprint, Altair designs the chip, and Murata designs the module. And Bayer, which has corralled the parties together, prints the tracker, just like any other stick-on postage label – and slaps it on everything that goes out of its warehouses. That is the theory, anyway, and the basis for excited talk in the market about achieving ‘massive’ IoT, finally – with cellular, as the forecasts foretell. “The cost is a Inventory – the label, attached to farming products, issues a signal when bags are opened to track usage / (Image: 123rf)

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enable automatic zero-touch provisioning onto local IoT networks – which, in the Bayer setup, covers Vodafone’s own NB-IoT estate, plus newly-signed roaming territories. Skipper explains: “The question has been how to get more tracking devices out there. And two things have happened: one is the emergence of this iSIM €5 capability, and the other is – the target price for the availability of licensed Bayer’s new smart low-power IoT networks – so a lower-cost “If you know what’s label, which it wants Vodafone says, after tear- implementation and a lower-cost carrier, at to sell to the wider ing and provisioning, the la- the same time. been opened, then supply chain bel reports periodically. “Once “That is how we’ve reset the price point you get answers to all per day to tell you it’s around, for tracking. But the trick, here, is not really kinds of questions.... You and to report events after that,” the technology itself, even though that is says Skipper. The rota is kept to daily trans- quite clever. The trick is how to provision know what to offer six weeks missions until the product moves out of those devices [automatically and globally]. down the road, whether that storage, and onto the road, where cellular That is the real advance in this stick-on la- is a herbicide or a fungicide. positioning provides a fix on the cargo. An bel; the network and all the rest of it just accelerometer and temperature sensor are happen to have come at the right time. If there has been a lot of rain, engaged, also, in case the goods are dam- Vodafone has so far activated 18 NB-IoT there’s a likelihood farmers aged in transit, and to trigger a response in networks, out of 26 regional operating in the area will want to treat distribution. companies. The new solution can be con- “Many of these companies have never figured for LTE-M, or even straight cellular for that; if insecticide is being had that kind of information before,” he connectivity; NB-IoT has been pre-selected opened, you can deduce there adds. in the Bayer design to reduce the power is a specific pest in the area.” Reporting slows, again, on arrival, in consumption and extend the battery life, storage at the other end. Usefully, an alert which is put at 18-24 months, depending Robert Wollenhaupt, head of digital is issued when the package is opened, and on usage. Another clever aspect, to extend architecture, Bayer the seal is broken, for a second time. This the battery and application, is the unit’s re- indicates the product has been put to use, porting schedule and functionality. and provides Bayer with additional data

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for inventory management and production scheduling. Bayer is using the label for tracking distribution of its agricultural products, notably chemical compounds or seed packs, initially. Robert Wollenhaupt, head of digital architecture at Bayer, says: “It means we can track every product we ship... It means we know if trucks don’t make it to their desti- nations... There are other use cases as well. Because a signal goes out when a bag of seed or fertilizer, or a bottle of compound is opened. It is a different view on real-time inventory, because it gives data about what’s in the market – what’s in the warehouses, and what’s in the field. “If you know what’s been opened, then you get answers to all kinds of questions.... You know what to offer six weeks down the road, whether that is a herbicide or a fungicide, for example. If there has been a lot of rain, there’s a likelihood farmers in the area will want to treat for that. The other way around is that if you see bags of insecticide being opened in a certain region, you can deduce there is perhaps a problem with a specific pest in that area.” The data is anonymised, at personal lev- IoT journey – tracking has moved from shipping containers to cardboard boxes and bags of fertilizer, as prices have fallen el anyway; the insights are zonal, and stop short of pinpointing the particular farm- house. Wollenhaupt says cellular positioning, using tower triangulation plus “some “This market has been magic” analytics, is good enough, and limited to all of these keeps the cost down. “The problem with very high value goods. GPS is it would use too much power; the label needs to have sufficient battery pow- All of a sudden, with this, er to cover storage, distribution, delivery you can track very simple to the growers, and some storage at that products, like a box of end, as well. We are shooting for two years’ battery life, with one data transmission per agricultural fertiliser. It day – ballpark.” is the starting point of To Sæther’s point about roaming; Voda- something much, fone has devised a settlement model to ex- pedite international roaming for the Bayer much bigger.” solution, and to set a template for future roaming of mass-market smart-label prod- Phil Skipper, ucts. The rationale is that existing roaming head of global IoT business compensation, as it exists in the consumer development, Vodafone market, cannot be easily reworked for massive volumes of IoT devices carrying scanty

24 FEATURE REPORT

data loads; the calculation has to be sim- plified, especially as the cellular IoT market finds its feet. Skipper says: “Roaming, really, is just Disposable tags – what about talking to enough operators. But with NB-IoT, there is a different model – because these devices don’t consume lots of about the environment? data. The agreements we have are based on settlement; we say, look, there are 100 ith some horror, the idea of looking into using biodegradable plastics, or 1,000 devices on the network, so let’s call disposable smart tags and made from fish scales, for the substrate, he it 100 or 1,000 times X, rather than calculat- labels, applied to millions says. ing how much data is actually going over of boxes and parcels, raises “You have the printed antenna, the the network. Which makes it very simple to Wthe grim notion the planet will be littered printed battery, the printed input and get started with these agreements.” with little pieces of technology. The en- output, and then the chip. Recovering the Deals with AT&T and Deutsche Telekom vironment is an urgent concern, and the chip is relatively straightforward; it sort of have been done, he says; “loads of others” technology industry is supposed to make comes off in the wash, literally. The other are in process. things better. That is the line, at least, stuff liquifies. If you can find a clever way Bayer retains the intellectual property which every corporation pays lips service to deal with the substrate, then I think you (IP) rights to the smart label solution. It to. are in a fairly good position.” wants to industrialise its group innovation So what about these innovations in the What about Sigfox, prepping a cut- in order to drive the price down. The firm tracking space, from the likes of Sigfox and down dollar-priced module for low-level translates “a few euros”, as Vodafone posi- Vodafone, bringing the cost of technology tracking? The French firm says it will issue tions the pricing, as €5, in fact; which is a to rock-bottom – in order to send ‘massive’ both disposable single-usage versions little way off the dollar mark Sigfox claims volumes of tagged assets into the supply and reusable versions with replaceable to be approaching. But the market wants chain? Well, both firms reckon their prod- batteries. It has in mind to develop a re- a cellular equivalent, reckons Bayer. “We ucts are green(ish). Are they concerned cycling scheme for the disposable version know others are interested – to be able to about littering the planet? “Yes,” responds – “like with glass bottles schemes for milk connect tracking devices automatically, Phil Skipper at Vodafone. The battery in or cola”. Ajay Range, in charge of business anywhere on the planet,” says Wollenhaupt. the new Bayer smart label, he notes, is development, comments: “Just because He goes on: “The idea is to share this inno- alkaline, rather than lithium-based, and they are a buck each doesn’t mean we can vation more widely across the industry, and so “dissolvable”; the same for the other throw them away, and make them dispos- not only to keep for ourselves. For us, just printed components, bar the chip, which able. We are trying to come up with new for the crop sciences division, we are talk- can be easily retrieved. The group are also ways to recycle and reuse them.” ing about hundreds of millions of packages and bottles, and so the potential volume is significant. But if you think about the wider market, and how much gets shipped across the board, then there is massive volume, potentially. “We are not at that point, yet. But we have products of all different sizes – from thousand-litre containers down to three-litre bottles. We can track the bigger containers, anyway, because the compound is expensive, and we want to know if it doesn’t arrive. And if we drive the price down far enough, it starts to make sense for the smaller items, as well – maybe not for every bottle, but at least for some of the bottles on the pallet.” Environmenyal – the Vodafone label will feature biodegradeable parts; the Sigfox solution will be recyclable

25 FEATURE REPORT

Skipper remarks: “This market has been global tracking, says Bayer started with limited to shipping containers and heavy 20,000 sticky tags, and has set a target of five equipment, and spare parts for aircraft, and million by 2025. It is not exactly 50-billion TRACKING CASE #5 pallets of perfume and whisky; all of these ‘massive’ then, but it is a step on the way. very high value goods. All of a sudden, with Taylor comments: “It is a really, really big this, you can track very simple products, like innovation – if they can get it there. The Morita + BLE a box of agricultural fertiliser – and down question is, will it work? And the answer may even to something like a bottle of cognac. well be, ‘yes’. It could be an excellent solu- – tracking It is the starting point of something much, tion. There are a lot of other people working much bigger.” on it. The market isn’t there yet, for sure. But Much bigger, maybe, but does it get us as enterprises start seeing these opportuni- production to ‘massive’ scale, as per the forecasts and ties for medium-life trackers, which fix on as specifications? Taylor at ABI, who wrote printed labels, it will be a really big segment, apanese fire truck maker Mori- the 50-percent annual growth forecast for and really drive the volume.” ta Group has deployed a Blue- tooth-based IoT solution at a 57,000-square metre factory in JOsaka, in Japan, to track the location and status of trucks as they are being built. The solution, by Japanese firm Kokus- ai Kogyo, utilises Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) tags and locators from Finnish outfit Quuppa. These are fitted to the vehicles and the inside of the factory, respectively, to monitor location and progress as the trucks make their way between production bays. The challenge for Morita is to manage the simultaneous production of several hundreds of customised fire trucks between manufacturing zones at the site, in Sanda City, in Japan’s Hyogo Prefec- ture, north of Osaka. The plant produces 700 fire trucks each year, and has around 300 in production at any time. The BLE solution gives the location of the fire trucks to within about one metre – “even in challenging environments with high ceilings and metal structures”. Kokusai Kogyo installed around 70 BLE antennas (‘locators’) at the plant, sus- pended inside from ceilings and mount- ed outside on walls. A BLE beacon is fixed to the dashboard of each truck at the start of production. A traffic light system shows their progress against schedule on display screens in the facility. Morita s looking to integrate on-site tracking for workers, as well as between its factories, and even with suppliers.

26 FEATURED COMPANIES FEATURE REPORT

HID powers the trusted identities of the world’s people, places and things. We make it possible for people to transact safely, work productively, and travel freely.

Nordic Semiconductor specializes in ultra-low power Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, Zigbee and proprietary 2.4GHz, as well as LTE-M and NB-IoT wireless communication technologies for IoT.

u‑blox is a global technology leader in positioning and wireless communication in automotive, industrial, and consumer markets. Their smart and reliable solutions, services and products let people, vehicles, and machines determine their precise position and communicate wirelessly over cellular and short-range networks.

27 2020 EDITORIAL CALENDAR

OCTOBER 2020

Unravelling a digital thread: Integrating information flows within and beyond the factory floor

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DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: SHORT + LONG RANGE IOT DIGITAL FACTORY SOLUTIONS: AUGMENTED REALITY DIGITAL INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS: SMART LIGHTING

JULY 2020 MARCH 2020 Better together - SHORT SMART APRIL 2020 LIGHTING & ONG NDUSTRIAL as a RANGE IOT I- and the rise of the workers AR PLATFORM – the sudden clamour for hybrid IoT How augmented reality is transforming – for smart buildings and smart cities, and why two IoT technologies production, and raising the influence and how use cases, strategies are better than one and solutions compare by James Blackman of workers in the robot age Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights by James Blackman, editor, Enterprise IoT Insights by James Blackman Editor, Enterprise IoT Insights