A trio of French tech and logistics firms have combined to develop a new tracking solution for the freight industry which uses both terrestrial and satellite IoT technologies. The consortium comprises private rail freight operator Europorte, owned by railway operator Getlink, which manages the Channel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom, along with LoRaWAN hardware provider Kerlink and satellite IoT operator Kinéis.
The latter, Kinéis, is to launch five new nanosatellites this week (June 18), with another 20 to follow within eight months. The firm wants its new satellite constellation to provide global IoT connectivity for remote applications in the logistics industry, mainly. The launch next week is its first since it was spun-off from the French Space Agency (CNES) in 2018 with a mission to “democratise” satellite IoT. Kinéis has raised €100 million in funding.
The new solution from the three firms is called Track Value, and is presented as “the first industrial application dedicated to the freight and logistics sector to incorporate data transmission via Kinéis space connectivity”. They called it a “revolutionary traceability and monitoring solution for all freight activities”, and also a “sovereign solution” (“100 percent French”, they explained). It is being pitched for road, rail, air, and sea freight.
It uses LoRaWAN for terrestrial-based IoT communications. Track Value will go on sale in the third quarter of 2024.
A statement said: “Today’s transport operators are faced with an increase in trade and must guarantee the safety of their goods and reduce the impact of their transport on the environment… This innovative solution improves the management of these flows by digitising multimodal transport activities. This digitisation improves the quality and reliability of services, thanks to data feedback and processing in near-real time and from anywhere in the world.”
Raphaël Doutrebente, chairman at Europorte, said: “We are delighted with this innovative partnership, which will enable us to provide a precise response to the need to secure goods being transported. With Track Value, Europorte, a subsidiary of the Getlink group and the leading private rail freight operator, is providing a solution for all customers in the transport logistics sector (road, rail, air and sea).”
Yannick Delibie, technical director at Kerlink, said: “Kerlink’s teams have contributed their expertise in tailor-made IoT connectivity solutions to develop the Track Value solution and offer a genuine innovation to meet the challenge of more sustainable freight.”
Alexandre Tisserant, chairman of Kinéis, said: “Kinéis’ space connectivity is now an established and essential offering in the IoT market. This partnership with Europorte and Kerlink for the Track Value solution illustrates the close links we are developing with industrial players in all sectors.“
