Keeping in contact | moving devices

We deal with entities that are moving (e.g. animals, farm equipment, etc.). We want to ensure they remain in contact with people or systems monitoring or controlling them. We need to do this using the least energy and airtime possible while meeting the needs of each entity.

Many things influence the quality of a device’s reception e.g. distance, gateway characteristics, device population (e.g. congestion), topography, obstructions, etc. so our users’ networks may be dynamic i.e. gateways and relays being added, antennas adjusted, etc. to extend coverage or capacity. 

Entities can be in different states or situations so how long it is OK for an entity to be out of contact may vary by individual and change over time. Some users may need to be able to control energy use for each individual. With some animals, people or equipment in some situations  (e.g. the animal is unwell or the equipment near sensitive environmental zones)  users can accept missing a many messages in other cases they can not.

There are a number of approaches that can be used. For stationary devices in static networks people may rely on ADR. In other cases people may use our Adaptive Broadcast Energy (ABE) feature to allow specific devices to respond more quickly.  People may also use manual overrides to control configurations.

What the user does

For any entity, a user can define:

• if ADR is enabled — energy use is then determined automatically based on simple system wide parameters (and ABE and Manual control is not available)

• if ABE is enabled — energy use is controlled by device (and Manual control is not available). The parameters are:

Missed message limit — how many Messages can be missed (minutes) too Loud Period — how long to accept messages using too much energy/air time to communicate

What the solution does:

The solution automatically:

• Reduces the energy/air time device uses if it is using more than needed.

• Increases the energy/air time a device uses if too many messages are missed.

• Alerts a user if a device:

• is off line for more than a user defined period

• has been dropped i.e. is detached from entity

• is at a strange angle e.g. does not seem to be seated correctly

• is outside the areas it is meant to be in (wandering, escaped, etc.)

An example — sick or wayward horse

The horse is well within GW range.
The horse moves to the edge of range.
The horse moves out of range so the device increases energy used to ensure connection,
The horse is well within range.
The horse moves closer and no longer needs to use as much energy to communicate.
The device is asked to reduce its energy use to conserve battery and on air time.