Nordic helps Bluetooth low energy beacons and gateways enable indoor object tracking solutions

SGW Wireless Indoor Object Tracking Solution Kit uses Nordic nRF52840 SoC for Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity

OSLO, Norway – April 20, 2022 – SG Wireless, a Hong Kong-based IoT technology solutions company, has launched the “SGW Wireless Indoor Object Tracking Solution Kit” for real-time object tracking, which can track objects within a predefined area. The solution uses Nordic’s nRF52840 Bluetooth 5.3/Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) advanced multi-protocol system-on-chip (SoC) to inform users where a specific object is located or where it has been moved. The company said the system provides 98% sensing accuracy within a three-meter radius, and each kit can cover up to 500 square meters of building area.

Each SGW Wireless Indoor Item Tracking Solution includes eight "SGW8130C BLE Beacon Tags" and four "SGW6008C BLE-WiFi Gateways" for IoT applications, which can track eight items in four areas. Nordic's nRF52840 SoC is used on the patented and certified "SGW1110 BLE" module, integrated into the beacon tags and gateways. Both devices use the nRF52840's 2.4 GHz multiprotocol radio (nRF52840 also supports Bluetooth 5.3, long range, Bluetooth mesh, ANT™, Thread, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, NFC and proprietary 2.4 GHz RF protocol software), with 8 dBm output power and -95 dBm RX sensitivity, with a link budget of 103 dBm. This link budget provides good extended coverage for indoor item tracking applications (such as tracking items in hospitals, warehouses, and factories).

Users attach SGW8130C BLE beacon tags to items that need to be tracked, one beacon tag per item. Each beacon tag broadcasts a unique low-power Bluetooth data message for the gateway to receive. To optimize battery life, the beacon tags broadcast data messages every five seconds. When the SGW6008C BLE-WiFi gateway receives low-power Bluetooth data messages from beacon tags around it, it determines the strength of the signal. The gateway sends all data to the relevant application website program via Wi-Fi connection, and the received information is aggregated and processed by a proprietary algorithm to determine the area where each beacon tag is located, thereby determining the location of the corresponding item. Users can instantly locate valuable items through the application website program on their computer or smartphone. In addition, users can also have a more comprehensive understanding of the utilization rate of items, so as to better plan asset maintenance, repairs and necessary replacements to optimize business operations.

The nRF52840 SoC's embedded 64 MHz, 32-bit Arm® Cortex® M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) can be used as the host on the SGW6008C gateway, directly forwarding data between low-power Bluetooth and Wi-Fi devices without the need for additional processing. The SoC has ample 1 MB flash and 256 KB RAM memory allocation, allowing storage and caching of large amounts of data.

The SGW6008C gateway is powered via a micro-USB port, while the SGW8130C beacon tag runs on a CR2032 coin cell battery, capable of providing up to 3 million location updates over a period of up to three years, thanks in part to the low-power operation of the Nordic nRF52840 SoC .

“Nordic’s nRF52840 SoC is the most complete and cost-effective solution in the Bluetooth LE category in terms of form factor,” said SG Wireless CTO, Wing-Te Wang. “With its Arm Cortex M4 processor and ample on-chip memory, the SoC can run advanced IoT applications without the need for additional processing chips, enabling us to develop Bluetooth LE modules that are both small and powerful.”

“In addition, Nordic’s comprehensive software development kit (SDK) provides reference code, which greatly shortens the product development cycle.”