State-of-the-art sensors for asset tracking
With the constantly rising amount of various sensors and their functionality, sensors support becomes a critical opportunity for any innovation-driven telematics platform. Here we will go through some important sensors types and their benefits for telematics.
Sensors and their types
Modern cars have a lot of regular sensors which are connected through the vehicle’s local network (CAN). The growing bandwidth of mobile networks allows this data to be transmitted to a server in real-time, easily, and cost-efficiently.
Embedded smartphone sensors are among the crucial components, providing mobile-based telematics functionality to advance. For sure, the actual set of sensors largely depends on the particular smartphone model, but some of them already became very frequently used:
- GPS unit
- Gyroscope
- Accelerometer
- Magnetometer
- Proximity sensor
We have covered some working principles of these sensors in our post on mobile telematics, therefore here we’ll mainly consider the sensors that could be utilized in addition to the regular ones. Quite often sensors are installed to track the use of special equipment, e.g. a drum rotation sensor in a concrete mixer truck. For trucks carrying frozen food, the temperature sensor is a must. Vehicle telematics might require tire pressure and truck axle load sensors or a passenger meter for buses and other PCV.
Utilizing data from various vehicle sensors, organizations can obtain reliable data on the real load of their fleet: useful work, conditions of cargo transportation, equipment health and the quality of driving. This, in turn, allows them to reduce commercial, financial and reputational risks associated with fuel thefts and misuse of vehicles, minimize damage to goods, wear and tear of vehicles, road accidents, and other aspects.
Long-time measurements provide the company with powerful and insightful analytics which can serve as the basis of management decisions and assessment of their efficiency. Thus, the management can understand which drivers need to be retrained, which vehicles are due to repair.
Sensors for insightful telematics: examples
Nowadays a wide range of various sensors is available already, and the list of such sensors continues to grow regularly. Here we will consider just a few common types of sensors.
A fuel level sensor is a device designed to make precise measurements of fuel level in vehicle tanks. In some cases, the measuring sensor could be added on the telematics platform automatically. For instance, when installing an OBD2 GPS tracker. These measurements combined with a GPS tracking and telematics platform functionality enable the following data to be harvested:
- fuel level in the tank of a vehicle
- fuel refilling
- vehicle idling
- fuel usage monitoring
- fuel theft prevention
- fuel refills or drains
- fuel consumption per time period
- average fuel consumption (miles per gallon, mpg)
Another common sensor type is the BLE sensor that shows the data from wireless measurement sensors connected via Bluetooth. The main types of BLE sensors at the moment are temperature, fuel level, humidity, battery voltage/level. Creating separate BLE sensors will simplify the configuration of wireless measurement sensors.
Blood pressure and heart rate sensors show the pressure and heart rate of a person using the tracker. Such sensors allow providing telematics services to elderly persons. The passenger counter sensor shows the number of passengers entering and leaving. Adding such sensors to the telematics platform solves the tasks related to the counting of passengers.
Some vehicle trackers can transmit data on the current state of doors, hood, and trunk. One can track its current status and find out if one forgot to close the doors. This data is transmitted via the CAN bus.
Accordingly, the GPS-tracker must be equipped with a built-in or external CAN reader connected to the vehicle. As soon as the system receives the information that one of the elements is open for the first time, the corresponding line will appear in the CAN data widget.
Most modern GPS devices have a set of data transmitted to the backend server. The list itself can be quite big and include information about the device itself (coordinates, altitude, acceleration along all axes, mileage), and information about the vehicle to which it is connected (ignition status, coolant temperature, axle load). It can also monitor the status of other external devices, e.g., an external temperature and humidity sensor. All this information could also potentially be utilized for insightful telematics.
Original publication: https://talks.navixy.com/reviews/advanced-sensors-in-asset-monitoring
