With the growing demand for efficiency, safety, and precision in asset management, locationing technology is transforming industries by enabling real-time tracking and intelligent monitoring of assets. For industries like manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare, precise tracking of assets to enhance operational efficiency, reduce losses, and optimize resource utilization is crucial to enable real-time visibility and control which facilitates improved productivity and cost savings.
What is Locationing and How Do I Pick a Locationing System that is Right for Me?
Locationing refers to the technology and methods used to determine the physical location of objects, people, or assets. It involves tracking or pinpointing positions in real-time or at intervals, typically within a defined area or range. Locationing systems rely on various technologies—such as GPS, Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE), Wi-Fi, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)—to provide location data, often down to precise coordinates or relative distances.
With so many locationing technologies, each suited for a specific application with their pros and cons, how do you know which locationing system would be best suited for your needs and applications? The first question that might help to orient you in picking a locationing system is "To what scale and area am I tracking within?" This will help to determine if you need a locator and tag system or simple standalone tags. Here are some considerations for you to start finding out what kind of tracking system you need:
- What is the scale and deployment area you’re working with?
- Broad or dynamic area: A standalone crowdsourcing tag works well for mobile assets that are in transit across locations city-wide or across long distances.
- Confined or controlled environments:
- Do you need the precise location for critical assets like machinery or medical equipment in a hospital, maybe even in challenging RF environments like warehouses where you're managing hundreds or thousands of assets?
- You might want to use an Angle of Arrival (AoA) Locator in conjunction with Bluetooth LE tags to be aware of the exact location of your asset in a given location. Renesas offers a standard smart asset tracking label as well as a Bluetooth LE proximity tag that you can customize for specific features that will work with our AoA Locator!
- Or are you close to your asset or just want to know the general location if it leaves its appropriate area? Either one of our standalone asset tracking tags can be used to locate your assets and items via Bluetooth Low Energy.
- Do you need the precise location for critical assets like machinery or medical equipment in a hospital, maybe even in challenging RF environments like warehouses where you're managing hundreds or thousands of assets?
The flowchart below helps determine if your needs align more closely with standard asset tracking, high-precision indoor tracking, or customizable features for proximity alerts.
This blog will provide an overview of a few key features and benefits of the asset tracking solutions that Renesas currently offers.
Crowdsourcing Tracker: Bluetooth Low Energy Tags for Crowdsourced Location Tracking
Renesas' Bluetooth LE tags for Crowdsourced Location (CSL) tracking utilize nearby devices to locate assets across a wide range of environments, making them particularly effective in open spaces where fixed tracking infrastructure may be challenging or impractical. Leveraging a scalable tracking network, these tags provide enhanced coverage over large geographic areas, ideal for tracking assets in transit—such as shipping containers or high-value equipment on the move.
Built with a best-in-class, low-power System on Chip (SoC), this design supports both Google Find My Device and Apple Find My™ networks, ensuring broad compatibility and seamless integration with widely used location services.
Buzzers driven by an HVPAK enable alerts and sounds to play out when in closer proximity of the tag to pinpoint its exact location.
Angle of Arrival Locator: Universal Bluetooth Low Energy Angle of Arrival Locator for Asset Tracking
Angle of Arrival (AoA) locationing utilizes a transmitting device (asset tag) and a receiver device (fixed locator) to determine the precise location of the tag through triangulation as the transmitter device passes through the array of receivers. AoA locationing is extremely useful for indoor localization and tracking in challenging RF environments and can track down to 10cm precision—ideal for high-density environments such as hospitals or manufacturing floors.
The Renesas Asset Tracking and Locationing at Scale (ATLAS) system is a best-in-class tracking system that enables the tracking of 500+ tags/locators/second or thousands of tags/locators with incredible precision. With real-time locationing and high-capacity tracking, this system is compatible with existing Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) backends or IOSEA's best-in-class RTLS backend/microservice for scalable, efficient, and accurate real-time location tracking. This also can support Angle of Arrival (AoA), Angle of Departure (AoD), ATLAS, ATLASlite, Eddystone™, and iBeacon™ tags.
Standard Asset Tracker: Smart Asset Tracking Label
For standard asset tracking, the Renesas Smart Asset Tracking Label has a robust, low-energy design utilizing Bluetooth 5.1 to report an asset's location through a tablet or mobile phone application. The SoC of this tracker uses less than 300nA of current during hibernation mode, and the power circuit of this design maximizes battery life with numerous topologies available for implementation.
This smart asset tag can include peripherals such as the following:
- Accelerometer: To log handling and impact data for fragile items and to determine theft or tampering if the asset is supposed to be stationary during a specific period of time
- Ambient light sensor: For tamper detection and light-sensitive items such as pharmaceuticals, artwork/documents, and/or food products
- Temperature/Humidity sensor: For products that need to be kept in a temperature/humidity sensitive environment such as food, medicine, livestock, etc.
Advanced and Customizable Asset Tracking: Bluetooth Low Energy Tags for Proximity and Asset Tracking
The Renesas Bluetooth Low Energy Tags for Proximity and Asset Tracking is a versatile system design that can cover a broad range of functions and made specifically for any application. This solution is highly customizable, making it ideal for specialized tracking needs that go beyond standard applications. By interchanging the SoC or microcontroller (MCU) of this system and adding different peripherals, various functionalities can be implemented. For example, utilizing the DA1459x and DA1469x Bluetooth LE SoCs, phase-based ranging can be implemented for accurate point-to-point tracking.
On this design, similar peripherals to the Smart Asset Tracking Label can be added as well. These may include but are not limited to temperature and humidity sensors and accelerometers/gyroscopes.
Enhance Your Asset Management with Renesas Locationing Solutions
Whether you’re managing an inventory in a warehouse, tracking valuable assets in transit, or monitoring equipment in real time, Renesas offers a solution tailored to meet your needs. Each of Renesas' solutions—from the highly customizable Bluetooth LE tags to advanced Angle of Arrival technology—brings a unique set of capabilities designed to fit specific applications and environments. As industries evolve, leveraging the right combination of technology and innovation is key to staying ahead.
Ready to find the ideal solution for your tracking requirements? Explore the full range of locationing products on our website or get in touch with a Renesas expert for personalized guidance. Transform your asset management today with Renesas' reliable, industry-leading locationing solutions! To see this solution and other Winning Combinations from Renesas, please visit www.renesas.com/win.
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