Engineers Say | Smart Asset Tracking Tags: The Future of Package Tracking
By Michael Joehren
Solutions Architect
At the end of 2018, we started thinking about demos for CES 2019. Little did we know then that this would be the last major trade show that most of us would be able to attend offline in the near future. Earlier that year, we met a printed battery manufacturing company based in Berkeley, California. Their signature product is a flexible disposable battery that is the size of a credit card and less than 1mm thick.
One of our ideas was to develop a small, low-cost, thin Bluetooth low energy tag, beacon, findable device, logger. One of my colleagues quickly developed two design prototypes based on the Bluetooth low energy SoC DA14531 that we exhibited at CES 2019 and received very positive feedback. We demonstrated connecting the two tags to a gateway that determines the RF signal strength to estimate the distance and identify each tag. The first demonstration did not include any additional features, such as sensors.
Positive customer feedback prompted us to rethink what else a Bluetooth low energy-connected tag could do, which inspired us to start working on a new generation of tags. Knowing that we would need a large number of samples, we worked with a third-party manufacturing company to design a small flexible foil PCB that integrates the Bluetooth low energy DA14531 SoC, 8-Mb flash memory, multiple sensors (humidity and temperature, ambient light, 3-axis accelerometer), and simplified its connection to the printed battery mentioned above.
The proof-of-concept design (PoC) is now available
Various scenarios, such as:
Data logging and reporting , such as food, medicine and other sensitive goods using battery-powered, standard RF-equipped eco-labels/tags
Inventory control , such as scanning thousands of items in a medium-sized warehouse or on pallets using just a smartphone or tablet
Destruction detection , such as recording light exposure events, destructive contact, acceleration
Renesas’ acquisition of Dialog provides a unique opportunity to expand our solutions to a wide range of industrial and consumer markets by complementing Dialog’s Bluetooth low energy, ultra-low power Wi-Fi, and Flash solutions with Renesas sensors, additional wireless devices such as the LTE CAT-M1, or additional ULP MCUs. Our new PoC consists of the Renesas HS3001 humidity and temperature sensor, the DA14531 Bluetooth LE, and the AT25XE081D 8Mb ultra-low leakage SPI Flash. The additional MC3635 3-axis accelerometer and low voltage ambient light sensor complete the system (Figure 1).
figure 1
Compared to this solution, existing data logging tags or labels either use NFC for communication (because the battery is too small to power our competitors' wireless devices) or, if they use common active wireless technologies (such as BLE or Wi-Fi), they use large batteries that are designed to be reused for a long time and require their own logistics system for recycling. Our BLE-equipped solution is completely different, not only recording temperature and other environmental data, but also enabling users to read the data in real time and intervene before the goods are damaged or lost. Because this PoC uses BLE for wireless communication, only an ordinary mobile phone or tablet is needed to take advantage of these options, without the need for dedicated transceivers or dedicated infrastructure. In addition, because the printed batteries produced by Imprint Energy do not contain any components that are harmful to the environment, they can be disposed of as ordinary household waste.
Interestingly, throughout the process of working with battery suppliers and third-party manufacturing companies to develop and design this demonstration, we have had a lot of opportunities to engage with potential customers long before the first samples are actually available. We have provided multiple software implementations as well as tag hardware to support various user needs, from simple beacon functions, data logging to combined use of smart inventory center functions and a general Linux-OS based center. In addition, Renesas is working with multiple customers to expand application areas such as electronic shelf labels with E-ink screens and simple button batteries (lifetime of up to several years), BLE-based "findable devices" (with rechargeable primary batteries), and more solutions in this field.
This PoC is intended as an upgrade development platform for certain customer specific projects. However, other battery, sensor, memory, etc. requirements may impact actual product development depending on customer requirements. Customers with such engineering resource requirements may wish to leverage the work already done by third party design and manufacturing companies that we work with.
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Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) provides professional and trusted innovative embedded design and complete semiconductor solutions, aiming to improve people's work and lifestyle through billions of connected intelligent devices using its products. As a global supplier of microcontrollers, analog, power and SoC products, Renesas Electronics provides comprehensive solutions for various applications such as automobiles, industry, home, infrastructure and the Internet of Things, looking forward to working with you to create an infinite future. For more information, please visit renesas.com.
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