Smart edge devices are everywhere: in cars, phones, watches, parking meters, the list goes on. In sheer volume of devices, asset tracking through the supply chain is an area of particular interest, from manufacture through shipping, warehouse storage, then onto commercial end-users or retail shelves. However asset tracking platforms today are all constrained in one way or another. They must be very low cost, ultimately disposable to support very wide deployment; very low maintenance, effectively batteryless; and must meet sustainability regulations, again ideally batteryless. Passive RFID tags for asset tracking meet these needs but rely on staff armed with scanners to read the tags (active RFID tags fall short on the first set list of requirements). Ambient IoT is set to meet these needs through energy harvesting from the environment, just enough energy to serve the needs of sensing and communication to a nearby network without need for a scanner.
Ambient IoT
The idea of harvesting energy from ambient sources has been around for a while. Sunlight or artificial light, ambient radio waves, and machine vibrations are just a few of the possible sources. Energy harvesting platforms have been available for some time though packaged as standalone chips which can’t meet price expectations for disposable ambient IoT (say 40 cents/unit).
Another challenge for an IoT form factor has been that only very small amounts of energy can be generated in this way. While that energy can be used to trickle-charge a small battery or a capacitor, it didn’t amount to enough to drive a device to sense, compute and communicate.
Recently one exciting asset tracking application, retail Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL), has been taking off. This technology broadcasts updates in a store to all labels, keeping prices and promotions current without need for label checking staff with scanners. These ESLs prove the concept but communication has been mostly based on competing proprietary standards. The Bluetooth SIG has now standardized a BLE protocol for ESL, positioning BLE as an obvious communication choice in an overall Ambient IoT standard.
Discussion with Ambient IoT product developers first focuses on enabling smaller IoT device form factors through reduced functionality and usage options, to reduce energy needs and cost, while still sufficient for asset tracking purposes. Connect options are responsible for most of this simplification, where protocols must expect to live mostly in sleep mode, waking on a timer or perhaps an external prompt triggering a short data collection and transmit before going back to sleep. What power is burned during this cycle must be squeezed as low as possible.
Another very important part of the asset tracking discussion centers around broader communication support. BLE can only be energy efficient within a limited range (extendible somewhat through mesh networks). For longer range, communication must connect to Wi-Fi (when asset tracking in a warehouse for example) or cellular platforms (when asset tracking in more remote locations). Standard bodies in communications, 3GPP (cellular) and IEEE (Wi-Fi), together with the Bluetooth SIG, are all active in defining interoperable standards to meet the expectations of emerging Ambient IoT markets.
Ceva for Ambient IoT
Ceva is already the dominant provider for embedded wireless and wired connectivity through its silicon and software IP. Ceva Bluetooth Connectivity platform (available as BLE or as a dual mode solution with Bluetooth Classic) has closely tracked BT SIG releases for many years and is deployed today in billions of products.
A very important point for Ambient IoT applications is that the Ceva Bluetooth architecture is especially well suited to extremely low power configurations. An assistive hardware accelerator can offload significant activity that an embedded CPU would normally need to handle in preparing to transmit or receive a packet. The CPU can stay asleep for longer while the power optimized BLE platform handles more of the Tx/Rx load, reducing total energy consumption per cycle.
Also important is that Ceva is equally strong and widely deployed in Wi-Fi IP and 5G and LTE Cellular Wireless Communication (including NB-IoT). Maybe you are planning a complete system platform, connecting a Fixed Wireless Access platform through Bluetooth beacons to Ambient IoT devices. Or perhaps you plan a similar solution based instead on Wi-Fi APs. Ceva have you covered on all those standards. Or maybe you just want to build the edge devices (and maybe beacons), connecting to existing infrastructure. Ceva full standards compliance and production proven success is your guarantee that connectivity will be trouble free.
Already in this emerging market, Ceva have endorsements. Atmosic has released their full-chip power-harvesting BLE solutions based on Ceva BLE IP. Also Skaichips is building Ceva BLE powered devices to support Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL).
