Tag keeps tab of assets with a five-year battery lifetime
One of the main challenges associated with asset tracking tags, battery life, is addressed by the RSL10 asset tag, released by onsemi. It has a battery life of up to five years – rather than a year or less which is typical for asset tracking tags or beacons, says the company.
The RSL10 asset tag is able to offer the industry leading battery life, says onsemi, due to the low power consumption of the RSL10 Bluetooth 5 radio SoC and enhancements at the firmware level.
In addition to the Bluetooth SoC based on Quuappa’s real time localisation services (RTSL) Intelligent Locating System, the tag features a three-axis accelerometer and environmental sensors (measuring motion, pressure and temperature). These combine to provide data around environment, condition and orientation. Each sensor is powered through a dedicated MOSFET load switch, controlled by the RSL10. According to onsemi, this design enables the overall system power consumption to be controlled on a per-sensor basis, which decreases the total power used.
Additional features include a low-cost antenna, matching circuit optimised for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) transmissions, a multi-purpose dome switch and a 10-pin debugger that can be removed depending on the needs of the application.
The RSL10 was selected for use in an indoor localisation beacon designed to track and monitor hospital equipment jointly developed by Blyott, an IoT provider and Tatwah, which provides Bluetooth LE tags and beacons. Blyott selected Tatwah’s RSL10-based beacons because of their small form factor, low power capabilities and the ability of the IP67 tags to meet the stringent sterilisation requirements in the healthcare environment.
The RSL10 asset tag is available with a suite of development tools, including multi-protocol wireless support for Bluetooth LE connectivity and the Quuppa Intelligent Locating System RTLS. The evaluation board include a CMSIS-Pack, developed by onsemi as a custom application that demonstrates the low power features and capabilities of the platform in an asset tracking use case.
“The next generation of RSL10-powered Bluetooth LE tags will allow Quuppa partners to leverage highly accurate, sensor-enriched positioning data with unprecedented battery lifetime, says Santtu Pulli, senior customer manager at Quuppa. “This enables use cases that haven’t been possible before due to the high cost of ownership,” he adds. He cites real-time asset visibility and related productivity optimisation as a key competitive advantage for companies in manufacturing, warehousing and logistics domains.
The RSL10 asset tag is available now.