The ability to measure is essential for effective sustainability initiatives, and as Transforma Insights reports, 11 out of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be improved through the use of Internet of Things (IoT)¹. Responsible consumption of water, electricity, and gas, meanwhile reducing waste and excess production is crucial to managing our natural resources and ensuring their availability for the future. Real-time data plays a significant role in managing resources by enabling prompt actions, such as responding to consumption patterns, detecting leaks, and optimizing distribution.

Meeting the requirements for IoT devices in sustainable consumption monitoring

Wireless transmission of consumption data requires reliable antenna solutions to ensure its successful delivery. Apart from the antenna, sensor units used for sustainability monitoring are typically compact and equipped with multiple sensors, battery, microcontroller for data processing, and a wireless communication module.

Important devices requirements:

• Delivering reliable data transfer with long-range, even in rough environments.
• Support for multiple communication standards.
• High durability ensuring low maintenance.
• Long battery life and long device lifetime.

The need to deploy these units underground, inside walls, or near metal and other materials, poses additional challenges to meet these requirements, and a compact high performance antenna solution plays a critical role.

The right antenna selection and design are crucial. If the antenna’s performance is subpar, it jeopardizes the device’s battery life, range, and ultimately the effectiveness of the data transfer and resource control. At Ignion we are dedicated to ensuring that IoT device makers have an easy path to deliver on these requirements.

Let’s explore a few examples of IoT applications that play a major role in achieving sustainable consumption.

Whether for water, gas, or electricity, the widespread deployment of smart meter devices allows real-time consumption monitoring at various levels, from individual housing units to large-scale infrastructure. For example, the smart electricity meter has the potential to decrease electricity consumption by 5%-12% between households and businesses and by 2030 the total number of Smart Electricity Meter connections will increase to 2.2 billion². These meters are often installed underground or inside walls, demanding long-range connectivity and robust performance with low maintenance.

Ignion works with smart metering companies like Itron, EDMI, and many others ensuring robust and reliable antenna performance across a range of metering form factors, supporting wireless standards such as LTE Cat1, LTE-M, NB-IoT, LoRa as well as the recent popularity in the 450 MHz space. A key advantage is that the same metering antenna design can be reused in subsequent meter designs, regardless of differences in dimensions or form.

More info about the New DI Network Interface Card from Itron.

More info about the EDMI case study.

Monitoring assets enables optimal utilization, leading to sustainable consumption and reduced waste. Just in transporting assets, a tracker solution can enable up to 8% saving on fuel³. Asset trackers can be found on various items, from shipping containers traveling globally to city bikes encouraging car-free transportation, even down to small parcels containing valuable goods. These trackers require a global cellular connection for data transfer, GNSS/GPS for location determination, and often a Bluetooth connection for direct device communication via smartphones. Designing an antenna solution that performs well and delivers reliable performance used to be challenging. However, Ignion’s Virtual Antenna® technology and the Oxion™ platform have made it possible for any hardware engineers to achieve this feat.

More info about the ThinTrack tiny parcel tracker.

While IoT does not offer a solution to all sustainability challenges, Ignion strives to lower the barriers to innovation in areas where the Internet of Things can make a difference. As part of the IoT ecosystem, Ignion collaborates with companies that share the goal of simplifying the design process and accelerating the development of impactful solutions which in the end enables the critical measurements to achieve sustainable consumption. Together, we can contribute to a positive change.

#Weareignion

To collaborate with us in simplifying the complex IoT design journey and enabling more sustainable initiatives, contact us at info@ignion.io.

Sources:

1: https://transformainsights.com/blog/iot-critical-tool-un-sdgs

2: https://transformainsights.com/blog/electricity-smart-meter-market-geographic

3: https://transformainsights.com/blog/sustainability

Manufacturers face major challenges when designing and developing an asset tracker, including concerns such as performance, battery life, and accuracy. The antenna provides the “ears’ of the device playing a critical role in ensuring reliable data transmission for asset monitoring solutions by reliably listening for the satellite signals that determine positioning.

With the need for more compact designs for asset trackers, new solutions are needed. For many years the antenna option chosen for tracking solutions using GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, and BeiDou) has typically been patch antennas. These antennas provide good reception thanks to being Right Hand Circularly Polarized (RHCP), the same as the GNSS signals from the satellite transmitters. However, they must always be positioned facing upwards and flat to efficiently pick up the signals. This was fine in the past, but as we’ve started using trackers in more varied and unpredictable situations, where these patch antennas can run into issues. Think about a tracking device on a parcel that may be stacked upside down or sideways in transport. It’s not always going to be steady or pointing straight up.  The patch antenna’s advantage becomes a liability.

[1]Recent studies have proved that an omnidirectional, linearly polarized antenna like the Virtual Antenna® solution, provides optimal GNSS performance and signal reception addressing the challenges associated with diverse tracking device requirements as well as providing a small footprint. Virtual Antenna® components, such as the DUO mXTEND™, enable flexible mounting and orientation options ensuring an enhanced satellite reception regardless of the tracker’s orientation and position. An omnidirectional antenna can effectively receive signals from multiple satellites, facilitating a rapid fix, whereas traditional patch antennas require a distinct orientation to operate successfully.

A rapid fix is evaluated through a feature called Time to First Fix (TTFF), which measures the time required for a GPS navigation device to acquire satellite signals and navigation data and calculate a position solution. Fewer seconds means a faster connection. A faster connection means higher accuracy and lower power needed. The result is a more reliable positioning device and a lowered carbon footprint due to longer battery life.

Here you can see Virtual Antenna® solution TTFF in red and patch antennas TTFF in gray.

So, in unpredictable situations, like if a tracking device is moving around or blocked by buildings, the signal strength might drop a bit. But that minor reduction has little impact. What matters the most is how the antenna picks up signals from different directions. By using Virtual Antenna® components it doesn’t matter which way a device is pointing – it can pick up satellite signals no matter its position.

But for the patch antenna, if it’s not pointing up at the sky it’s like trying to listen to a conversation in a noisy room – the signal it picks up isn’t as good or as accurate Or, for example, when the IoT device is on a vertical wall of a cargo container where the patch antenna is not pointing to the sky but to the horizon, the signals are weaker and TTFF is much delayed.

To sum up, asset tracking has become more complex, and device sizes are becoming smaller in many applications. It is no longer good enough to have a solution that cannot respond easily to the random positions and orientations of tracking devices, linear polarized antenna boosters like the Virtual Antenna® solution ensure a better TTFF than patch antennas, and with better TTFF comes more efficient battery life and accuracy which are table stakes for the category in today’s market.

If you want to try our antenna solution for your next sustainability project, try our free Oxion™ platform and you can learn more about our omnidirectional polarized antennas in our product section.

References:

• mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/24/9623
• https://ignion.io/files/AN_Chip-vs-patch-antenna-for-GNSS.pdf
• https://ignion.io/files/AN_GPS-GLONASS-and-BeiDou-in-a-single-antenna.pdf
• https://ignion.io/files/DG_Asset-Tracking.pdf
• https://transformainsights.com/blog/iot-critical-tool-un-sdgs
• https://transformainsights.com/blog/electricity-smart-meter-market-geographic
• https://transformainsights.com/blog/sustainability