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Hovig Ohannessian edited this page Aug 16, 2018 · 4 revisions

Short Name

Factory assets monitoring and tracking

Short Description

Improving Factory throughput for asset tracking or for asset conditions using IoT Technologies with dashboard and maps.

Offering Type

Internet of Things

Introduction

There are different ways to design asset tracking devices and connect it to the cloud. In this code pattern, the effort done is to set Lora to Lora communication and it is the cheapest and most efficient way to track your assets and connect sensors to it.

One or more node will connect to the gateway to send the incoming data from the sensors and the GPS module to the Watson IoT Platform, and finally to the dashboard.

Author

By Hovig Ohannessian

Code

Demo

Video

Overview

Real-time data streaming from assets can be a challenging tasks due to distance, weather conditions and many other factors. Factory assets monitoring and tracking give the opportunity to set alerts when danger is around or gather the data to analyze it and take action according to the output result from this analysis.

The design configured in this code pattern is using Adafruit's Feather M0 RFM95 Lorawan (Lora). This is a great component for asset tracking within a limited area of a diameter, for example, it can be best used for to track within a city or open field or within a building, etc.

A Lora device will transmit the data through radio frequency communication and another will receive it and pass it unto the gateway which is a Raspberry Pi 3 device that will connect to Watson IoT Platform using MQTT and publish events of data.

Once the IoT Platform receives the events, then Node-RED based dashboard will subscribe to these events and display the data in real-time. The dashboard will have gauges and charts for the speed and temperature values, and maps for the geolocation coordinates. Note that the temperature is queried from the Weather Insights but based on the device's latitude and longitude which will be passed in to retrieve the displayed values.

Flow

Architecture

  1. Hardware setup: starting with Lora (transmitter) with a GPS module connected to it, Lora (receiver) connected to the Raspberry Pi 3 (gateway).
  2. Create Watson Internet of Things Platform boilerplate from IBM Cloud (Bluemix) Catalog. This boilerplate includes Cloudant database, Node-RED and Internet of Things service.
  3. Node-RED dashboard code, plug-ins and setup.

Included components

Featured technologies

  • [Internet of Things]
  • [Lorawan]
  • [Python]
  • [C]
  • [Node-RED]
  • [Worldmap]

Blog

Take factory asset tracking and monitoring design to a next level. Experience the basic communications and take it on to expand it and make real-life application.

A person will go through a chain of thoughts on what devices to choose and how to connect them with the cheapest and most efficient way. Where to start from?

To experience a radio frequency communication with Adafruit Feather M0 RFM95 Lorawan device, check the code pattern that shows how a Lora (transmitter) sends data to another Lora (receiver) and then the gateway (Raspberry Pi 3) picks up the data and publishes them as events.

Node-RED dashboard will subscribe to the IBM Cloud's Watson IoT Platform to display values in real-time (gauges, charts and maps): speed, temperature and geolocation coordinates.

Links

Related links:

  1. Watson IoT Platform

  2. Medium blog for more details

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