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Beacon Customization for an Asset Tracking Solution for Enterprise
Beacons
BLE
Custom software development
Embedded software development
Firmware development
Logistics and asset tracking
Businesses find many uses for location-based technologies. They help enterprises track their assets, increase sales, and improve efficiency. Modern location-based services, like tracking systems, rely on a combination of RFID, beacons, and mobile technologies. Beacons are small physical devices with transmitters that use Bluetooth low-energy to transmit signals. There are many beacon manufacturers out there. But sometimes it is still hard to find a solution that perfectly matches your needs.
Request
We were contacted by a company that provides integration of location services and the Internet of Things. The company offers businesses ready-made physical beacons to enable communication in a wireless networking platform. The beacons they used were based on EM6819 and nRF51 microcontrollers. The company needed to customize these beacons to make them more suitable for their needs.
Solution
First, our client gave our team a test assignment that we needed to complete to prove the quality of our work. When the test assignment was successfully done, our client decided to continue working with us. We provided firmware development for beacons and completed the following tasks:
- Data customization in the advertising packet – the layer that handles connectivity tasks.
- Gatt-service and characteristic modifications – through the Gatt-service a user can change beacon system settings and IDs.
- Optimization of energy consumption – we increased the battery life by 30%.
Scope of work
- Software development for a BLE gateway based on Raspberry
- Firmware development for EM6819 and nRF51 based beacons
Technologies Used
- The hardware for BLE beacons was based on EM6819, NRF51822 and NRF52832.
- The firmware was implemented using C.
- Keil, IAR, EM Studio IDEs was used for firmware implementation.
- The software for gateway was implemented using C++ and Java.
- Eclipse IDE was used for software implementation.
Result
Because the Bluetooth beacons we worked with are deployed in enterprise assets, there is a high demand for reliability and security.
We helped our client improve the quality of their solution by customizing existing beacons.
The main technical challenge was connected with microcontrollers. They had a limited amount of resources and the firmware completely occupied all the available space. So, we had to optimize the firmware and reduce the energy consumption.
Despite the limitations, we successfully added all new features to the beacon while achieving the required minimum level of energy consumption. We extended the beacon battery life by 30%.
Our team also developed a BLE gateway device based on Raspberry Pi.
Integra's creative engineers have innovative problem-solving skills and in-depth expertise which make this team a strong partner in their field; their flexibility and affordability allow the relationship to remain sustainable in the long term.
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