The demand for IoT devices that does not require battery replacement or plug-in recharging is increasing; battery replacement or plug-in recharging simply costs time and money. The solution ‘Energy Harvesting’ is becoming more popular – this is the recharging of IoT devices wirelessly by its surrounding ambient sources.
The main benefits of Energy Harvesting include:
Reducing battery replacement cost
Reducing the storage element size
Allowing additional features
Energy Harvesting is setting new standards for the industry as the number of companies shifting their devices to this breakthrough technology is growing. E-peas’ Ambient Energy Managers (AEM family) are suitable for Industrial, Smart Argriculture, e-Health, Security, Society and Wearables, Home Automation, Retail, and Mobility Applications.
e-peas has teamed up with SODAQ for a webinar to show potential customers how Photovoltaic Energy Harvesting can be implemented in Animal Tracking Tag Cases in Smart Agriculture.
What will the webinar cover?
Principle of evaluating the energy balance before design implementation
SODAQ’s approach to achieving low-power consumption on IoT edge devices and how these concepts came into play in developing the “mOOvement” Cattle Tracker. SODAQ’s low-power philosophy synergized with the e-peas AEM10941 lead to a fully autonomous cattle tracking solution that delivers real-time location data to free-range cattle farmers.
The webinar was held on Thursday 26th November 2020 at 10:00 GMT/11:00 CET.
Real world antenna considerations for LoRa, LPWAN and 4G
The last part of an RF-based design is commonly considered to be the antenna. In a remote design where optimal connectivity, low power performance and long battery life is paramount, the antenna decision should, in fact, be a priority as one of the first decisions. Antennas come in a wide range of shapes and sizes; the selection decision will likely influence the shape, size and the material used for the finished product enclosure.
Placement
Antenna placement is key especially for integrated (internal) antennas where there is limited space, and/or shielding from metal objects such as batteries, RF shielding cans, the PCB, mounting brackets and LCD displays. Essentially, with anything metallic, you have to carefully ensure that the antenna has a good view of the sky. In most cases, the optimal position for the antenna is either mounted on the top of the design inside or outside the enclosure. Many designers opt for the internal antennas as they are more aesthetically pleasing but this actually helps mitigate the problem of them being unscrewed or potentially damaged. That said, an externally mounted antenna will generally give better performance, however this usually comes down to the type or style of product being designed.
If you decide to use an internal antenna, you have two options: on PCB or off PCB. When considering this, the following areas need to be addressed:
For trace-on-board antennas, performance may be compromised; you need to ensure the PCB material is stable over temperature and humidity as this will change the RF performance. With respect to the chip-on-board antennas, they may need to be placed with a track along the long edge of the PCB to enable it to be tuned for best performance. For these reasons, many designers opt for the PCB patch antenna with micro coax feeders that are generally connected using U.FL style RF connectors.
The quality of the micro coax is vital; low quality micro coax cables may have a screen without a tight weave, which can cause the transmission to leak over the design, thus, causing instability. The higher the transmission power, the worser the effect. In addition to this, it’s good practice to route the micro coax around the internal corners of the enclosure and hold it in place with a drip of silicon or mould a pin into the housing to guarantee its route. We have seen many designs where MCU’s go into reset during transmit, due to poor quality coax and/or wrong placement of the coax.
It is critical to avoid detuning the antenna at the required frequencies as it can inadvertently change its performance. To ensure best performance, the RF module – regardless of band – must have a good 50 Ohm RF match as close to 1:1 as possible. However, sometimes this isn’t achievable because of the materials used in the enclosure or external mounting brackets etc. Therefore, it’s good practice placing the component spaces/layout for a Pi filter as close to the RF Module as you can, between the Module and RF connector. This fitted with a zero Ohm link to begin with, enables inductors and capacitors to be placed in the future to tune-up the antenna, to achieve optimal performance.
Testing
Sometimes, to only test that the design works on the bench just isn’t enough. Range/field testing in ‘real world’ style installations should be done to ensure you have good range margins. Testing in the field taking into account the signal attenuation caused by rain, fog, wet trees, buildings, vehicles etc. will ensure the design performs well without a hitch when deployed.
Long Range
Having an antenna with the best RF performance isn’t just a matter of good design practice – it can drastically improve the communication range and battery life. If the VSWR is off (antenna mismatched), you are burning more power than you need to during the transmit event and the received signal level is lower, hence requiring more current through the receiver stage. LoRa and LPWAN is predominantly about long range, low-power communications, so battery life and operational life in the field without the need for a truck-roll to change battery is the holy grail.
Contact Us for Any Advice
Solid State Supplies have a wide range of services assisting customers in antenna selection, placement and tuning. Our advice is free, so please contact us if you need any help.
We have a comprehensive range of antenna solutions supporting all types of wireless technologies including LoRa. Below is a selection of LoRa antennas to help support your design. If you have any questions, need support or advice, Solid State Supplies is here to service your technical and commercial requirements.
Written by Richard Bethell, Technical Director at Solid State Supplies
Richard Bethell, Technical Director at Solid State Supplies:
Installing a wireless-based solution can be a lot of hassle when you can’t make the distance within a good margin. However, the new 2JWIFI12 antenna promises great performance, making it a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card for the deployment of long range 2.4 & 5Ghz based wireless systems. If you’re looking for performance, we may have the answer.
The 2JWIFI12 is recommended for – but not limited to – the following applications:
Connecting to an Industrial style router to give Wi-Fi access across a large Industrial site
Point-to-point building communication for Wi-Fi
Greater Wi-Fi access in large buildings such as hospitals and government buildings
Extending the range of Wi-Fi in homes to give extended access in your garden or outdoor pursuits centre; where cellular connectivity isn’t available when using a laptop or tablet
Extending the range of any 2.4Ghz radio network, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Zigbee
The 2JWIFI12 antenna also support 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz Wi-Fi
Solid State Supplies also offer a host of communications solutions in module and box form for seamless global connectivity full details are available.
There is a growing interest in the value of data; developing hardware from bottom-up will continue to play a vital role in the industry however the demand for ‘Plug-and-Play’ products to reduce time-to-market is increasing.
Here at Solid State Supplies, our team of experts will always be at hand to assist customers in technical design, but for other customers who are interested in ‘finished products’, we present our ‘Plug-and-Play Solutions’ catalogue.
These products do not require any PCB to use. In this new catalogue, we present the most up-to-date, fully featured parts in each of the product series (other variants available upon request).
IoThink Solutions is an IoT company offering fully customisable software to remotely control, monitor and analyse data, equipment and environments to support various smart technologies. Founded in 2016 by Julien Dalmasso (CEO), Jérémy Mirouf (CTO) and Antoine Feldner (Head of Project Management department), using the ‘KHEIRON IoT Suite’, IoThink provides the tools needed to build bespoke IoT platforms which are compatible with a wide range of market sensors, and are adaptable to many applications to meet numerous requirements.
KHEIRON IoT Suite Features
KHEIRON Studio IoThink’s integrated development environment (IDE) to create your own dashboard
KHEIRON Service Platform web version to monitor your equipment and analyse your data
KHEIRON Mobile on iOS & Android
https://youtu.be/OkKCNTmb6XQ
KHEIRON IoT Suite was named after the centaur Kheiron from Ancient Greece mythology, also represented by the constellation Sagittarius. According to Greek mythology, Kheiron was the wisest and most skillful of the centaurs, so much so that he was the master of many ancient heroes. He was not only recognised for his knowledge, but above all for his ability to restitute knowledge and transmit it. This is what the IoT platform, Kheiron IoT Suite, does.
Why Choose IoThink Solutions?
The platform is agnostic; it already works with more than 15 communication protocols and connectivity networks (Sigfox, Lora WAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M, 3G,4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, HTTPS, MQTTS, etc.)
IoThink has created more than 1000s of use cases to date – more than 100 of these are already available in their public library of dashboards
The platform is multi-tenant – specific rights and roles can be assigned to administrators, technicians, etc.
IoThink can integrate any type of sensor, tracker or machine to the KHEIRON platform; their developers have already created more than 500 decoders. If a customer cannot find a device in the public library, they simply need to submit the technical information (payload) and IoThink engineers will do the integration for the customer
KHEIRON Service Platform is available both on the web and on mobile devices (iOS and Android)
The entire solution is available in White Label
KHEIRON Studio allows you to quickly design your own dashboard (create custom Digital Twins) using the ‘Drag & Drop’ system and a toolbox with widgets
Finally, users can create alerts by email, SMS and push notifications (on mobile devices) and generate reports that can be exported (in PDF, Excel or images)
Markets
IoThink Solutions already addresses various markets so it can help any type of business (from start-ups, SMBs, international corporations, etc.) and public organisations to accelerate their digital transformation and increase their ROI.
IoThink can assist any IoT project in the fields of: Smart Energy, Smart Building, Smart City, Smart Industry, Smart Retail, Smart Agriculture and Smart Logistics.
Ideal for
Device makers, machine builders, system integrators, network operators, OEMs, facility managers, solution providers, etc.
Partnership with Solid State Supplies
IoThink software solutions is a highly complementary service to Solid State Supplies’ hardware and support offerings. We recently partnered with IoThink to strengthen our complete IoT solutions.
Speak to one of our team to see what end-to-end IoT solutions can benefit your business.
A Long-Range (LoRa) Gateway at a basic level is quite a simple construct; it takes RF packets (typically 868/915MHz) on the LoRa side and sends them to a LoRaWAN Network Server on the “TCP/IP” side of the box. In this way, it can fulfil its basic role as a ‘distributed antenna’, shifting sensor data from the application environment to the Cloud.
Additional features are required for real-world deployments and this article takes a brief look at the key components that make up the full proposition of the R3000LG Gateway: hardware, software, support and price.
Hardware
The R3000LG is based on the popular R3000 4G router from Robustel. This means that there are already well over 100,000pcs of the core product in the market – a volume that is atypical in the world of the Internet of Things (IoT) currently.
This means that the design is tried and tested with thousands of units in the field working for many years. The unit has RS232, RS485, Digital Inputs and Ethernet ports as well as the core LoRa capability which can be invaluable if the scope of a project creeps, and more IO is required.
TPH6700 is an IP67 Enclosure with integral POE splitter that turns the R3000LG into a cost-effective outdoor solution, allowing outdoor deployment of the R3000LG via just a single piece of CAT5/6 cable.
Software
RobustOS is Robustel’s brilliant Linux-based router operating system that offers functionality far beyond a typical Gateway. Robustel has this advantage from being a high-volume 4G router manufacturer, perfecting RobustOS over the last 5 years.
Key features:
RobustVPN: Innovative use of Open VPN tunneling to provide a fixed IP address on the Gateway independent of SIM or ISP used
Robustel Cloud Manager Service (RCMS): Robustel’s Free Cloud management platform – essential for managing an estate of Gateways effectively
Data Guard: Critical ‘failsafe’ that stops unexpected data over-usage within seconds of a threshold being breached
Smart Roaming: Essential recovery solution for when your roaming SIM card doesn’t roam
Automated failover: Configure the Gateway to automatically fail from Ethernet WAN to 4G with just a few clicks
Support
Robustel and their distribution partners have an Industrial heritage and pride themselves in their support. They are able to deliver fast and accurate answers to techical issues, which is enabled by Robustel writing the operating system entirely in-house. With over 10 years of product design expertise, this means that in the rare instance there is a hardware issue, advice is quick to follow.
Price
The Robustel R3000LG is arguably the best price-to-performance Gateway on the market with one simple fact that underpins the claim. The R3000LG is based on a stable design of 4G router of which well over 100,000 units have already been sold. The R3000LG tremendously benefits from these economies of scale and that is why – for volume deployments – there is no better value 8-channel Gateway on the market.
If you have any questions about LoRa or Robustel, and how it can benefit your business, speak to one of our experts today.
Superior performance across sub-6 GHz frequencies in compact size
Introducing the world’s smallest plug-and-play 5G NR Monopole Antenna by 2J Antennas; featuring superior precision and performance, the compact-sized antenna is designed for 5GNR applications, enhancing mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC).
At a significantly reduced size of only Ø 10 × 80 mm, the 2JW1683 antenna is designed with the new sub-6 GHz technology transmissions, allowing further travel and able to penetrate solid objects such as buildings and busy urban areas making it ideal for access points and terminals.
This plug-and-play antenna solution is designed for movile devices operating within 5GNR / 4GLTE / FirstNet / CBRS / LPWA / CAT-X / CAT-Mx / CAT-NBx / NB-IoT standards. The 2JW1683 antenna also includes backward carrier compatibility with 4G LTE / 3G / 2G mobile devices and offers the new extended LTE B71 at 600 MHz band from TMobile, CBRS B48 and new Sprint/TMobile B25, B26 and B41 bands.
The 2JW1683 is an omni-directional antenna that extends an uninterrupted 360° radiation pattern with extremely high connection reliability while maintaining stable efficiency peak gains across all bands. Combining performance, reliability, and flexibility into a super low profile form factor, makes this antenna the first choice for global broadband mobile applications.
The 2JW1683 “KATANA” Antenna features:
Ultra Wide Band sub-6 GHz Antenna
Superior Performance in compact size
Low Profile form factor – reduces device size
Backward Carrier compatibility with 4G LTE / 3G / 2G
Hinged Connector allows for 45° to 90° tilt position range
Connector Mount Antenna
Ground Plane Dependent
The 2JW1683 is ideal for 5G applications such as: Augmented Reality Wireless Devices; Telemedicine Systems; Smart Cities Mobile Platforms; LTE B71 Mobile Devices; Artifical Intelligence Data Collecting Modules; Manufacturing 4.0; Mobile Gateways and Modems; and Routers, Terminals and Wireless Access Points.
We recently announced our latest partnership with LORIOT: a global IoT company providing long-range (LoRa) infrastructure for the Internet of Things (IoT). As both a software provider and network provider, LORIOT’s positioning in the LoRa® ecosystem enables them to provide one of the most powerful and complete solutions in the market.
Their core product is a software for scalable, distributed, resilient and secure operation of LoRaWAN® networks and end-to-end applications that dramatically reduces time to market for clients. They offer the network infrastructure to set up, operate and maintain a radio network, integrate sensors and communicate with them over a secure and reliable network.
Already operating in over 140 countries, LORIOT is one of the leading LoRaWAN® network solution providers worldwide.
LoRaWAN Network Server
The Network Server is at the core of an Internet of Things solution; secure, scalable, carrier-grade network connectivity for your valuable IoT data.
The LORIOT Network Server has built-in penetration tested security to safeguard your valuable IoT data.
Enterprise-grade network infrastructure enables the operation and management of IoT networks while providing proven reliability and scaling. Secure connectivity for thousands of gateways, millions of devices and the routing of critical data.
Top Features
Security
IoT security at every stage of your product life-cycle with enhanced, resilient end-to-end encrypted bidirectional data and device protection. Including LoRaWAN® AES 128 encryption combined with high-grade TLSv1.2 communication, LORIOT build battle-tested security into the network server to safeguard your IoT data and assets.
Scalability
A server architecture designed to grow with the network, from local deployments to national coverage, our network infrastructure and server distribution provides robust availability of all data. Carrier-grade redundancy, high-availability and minimal maintenance guarantees the handling of thousands of gateways and millions of devices.
Integrations
Flexible access to data, LORIOT network applications integrate with virtually any IoT application. They enable easy interoperability with IoT platforms, user and billing systems or device provisioning at the application server. Standard APIs such as MQTT, HTTPs and WebSocket are supported, and fully backend integrated platforms such as AWS IoT, Azure IoT, IBM Bluemix are available.
Management
A complete network infrastructure and software suite; enables the efficient management of your IoT network. A user-friendly web browser interface removes the complexity of scaling, managing devices and processing data so that you can focus on building the network. User management, roles and multi-tenancy streamline the server for efficient network and user organisation.
Operator
A wide feature-list of operator systems for effective IoT network deployments; monitoring, logs, alerts, and powerful tools such as remote gateway management and multiple application outputs provide data regulation and valuable status information. Plus, filtering and search tools to rapidly analyse the network and find anomalies.
Independence
LORIOT hosted or on-premise, our network server deployment is designed to meet your use-case and give you complete control. When security and control are critical, their flexible network server deployments offer complete independence to manage your data. LORIOT hands over full control of your server and are always ready to support when required.
Speak to one of our experts to see how Solid State Supplies and LORIOT can mean for your business.
Global long-range specialist IoT company, Loriot AG (‘LORIOT’), and franchised distributor, Solid State Supplies Ltd (‘Solid State Supplies’), have announced their newly agreed partnership to provide IoT solutions to their customers.
LORIOT is a revolutionary software and network provider based on the LoRa infrastructure; providing powerful IoT solutions by setting up, maintaining and operating secure networks tailored to a business’ needs.
‘Solid State Supplies Ltd understands the needs of customers, with a realistic focus on ensuring the successful delivery of IoT projects and provides the highest standards. Their expertise with hardware, electronic design and integrating the IoT stack combined our LoRaWAN Network Server will ensure best-in-class services at every stage.’ Added, Julian Studer, CEO at LORIOT.
Solid State Supplies is a franchised distributor of electronic components; they have a team of experts who specialise in the design and delivery of complete IoT solutions, utilising their strategic partnerships with different companies across the IoT spectrum to apply their ‘5 Stage IoT Framework’.
The decision of the partnership was confirmed almost immediately after understanding each other’s mutual strategy and parallel industry relationships. By forming this partnership, both companies are able to offer customers a more integral solution, maximising customers’ IoT potential within cost parameters.
Scott A. Brenton, IoT Technology Director at Solid State Supplies said ‘as IoT is made up of many technologies, it is important that we can discuss all options with customers, to offer suitable solutions that are available – including LoRa. Some customers will need a LoRa network server, and with our new partnership with LORIOT, we can offer an end-to-end solution; whether that may be custom-built or ‘off-the-shelf’. The synergy between LORIOT’s service and our hardware made it the obvious choice to move forward with our partnership.’
For more information about LORIOT, please speak to Scott A. Brenton at Solid State Supplies.
