The new offering combines Abeeway tracker hardware with Actility IoT platform and Cisco gateways
Actility, a French company which specializes in low power wide area networks (LPWAN) and location solutions, has launched a vehicle tracking solution for the U.S. market. The offering combines Abeeway Master Tracker hardware with Actility’s ThingPark IoT software platform and Cisco LPWAN gateways.
“Tracking buses driving in unpredictable traffic to avoid waiting in line is a really simple, basic application of the power of our LPWA geolocation solution,” said Actility CEO Mike Mulica. “We believe that geolocation is probably the killer app for the IoT globally. The U.S has been lagging behind the rest of the world in deploying LPWAN solutions, and we can see the American market is now beginning to accelerate rapidly, and we’re ready for that.”
During a recent test during the Cisco Live event in Las Vegas, Nev., Abeeway trackers, operating on the 915 MHz ISM band frequency required for the U.S. market, were installed in many of the 150 shuttle buses that circulate in the area of the southern Strip in Las Vegas, carrying attendees from their hotels and the airport to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Using the tracking application and mapping software, travelers could see the location and progress of each of the shuttles on its journey.
Cisco installed an LPWA network provided by Actility to cover the Cisco Live event and support a number of applications. The trackers were programmed to send location data every minute when the vehicle was moving, but only once an hour if the bus was stationary and parked. The Abeeway Master Tracker uses Actility’s “Low-Power GPS” technology specifically optimized for LoRaWAN, which allows fewer satellites to be used for a fix and reduces the GPS lock time to a few seconds. Using this low-power GPS the shuttle bus trackers were able to achieve an overall location accuracy of around two meters throughout the five-day duration of the trial deployment.
“We’re convinced this very successful trial is just the first step in an accelerating journey together to deploy solutions that will rapidly trigger the digital transformation of logistics, supply chain management and transportation services throughout the U.S.,” Mulica added.
