The No-Code Path to Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is not some feared juggernaut rolling across industries with little care. It is instead a powerful tool that industries from agriculture to manufacturing are seeking to boost their productivity, yield, and quality while lowering energy, fuel, maintenance, and other operational costs.
Much of this transformational energy comes from the movement of data as well as control signals on a communications backbone. Connectivity is so important that if agriculture were to successfully implement it, it could add $500 billion to the global GDP by 2030, according to McKinsey & Co.[i] The firm further estimates that using advanced connectivity in the oil industry’s field operations could add up to $250 billion to the industry’s upstream operations by 2030.[ii]
Perceived challenges to IIoT
Despite the advantages, businesses are often apprehensive of two key challenges. The first is the initial capex due to adding, changing, or modifying sensors so that they are not only measuring their environment but are also able to move information for analysis and action. Often when an enterprise examines the viability of adopting IIoT technology, they believe all legacy equipment would require replacing and deem the investment prohibitive.
The second challenge is implementation, including development time and effort as well as the operational expertise needed by this new connectivity. Take, for instance, a Microsoft survey of 3,000 decision-makers at enterprises either using or intending to use IIoT. The study showed 38% of enterprises found complexity and technical challenges as barriers, and nearly half were concerned about the lack of workers and training needed for the digital transformation.[iii]
Path to rapid deployment
The cost-effective way to initiate digital transformation is to unlock value in existing systems by integrating as seamlessly as possible new IIoT technologies with older equipment. Even when deploying new equipment, a modular approach used wherever possible offers flexibility to scale as needed as well as a wider, less-lock-in-prone choice of equipment suppliers.
However, this approach is itself not without challenges. Adding a communications module to a sensor or an IIoT-enabled sensor can run into problems of size and placement since legacy equipment was originally not designed to take on additional hardware. Furthermore, data generated by legacy equipment at various points in production tends to be heterogeneous and immense, and combining diverse communication technologies is not straightforward.
This is partly because cross-industry IIoT standards have yet to emerge for processing data exchanged between different systems, devices, and machines. Interoperability and the ability to consistently implement security measures is imperative, and IIoT enablers like InPlay are driving partnership efforts to address this urgent industry need.
Another concern being addressed is development effort and time. A trend toward low-code platforms has emerged to allow non-technical staff to develop applications with minimal coding experience. This allows enterprises to stay competitive by incorporating changes to processes, adding sensor nodes, as well as triggering actuator control under a different set of parameters with relative ease. Here as well InPlay is leading the trend by going beyond coding reduction to simply eliminate it altogether.
Choosing the communications technology
The first broad choice — between wired and wireless routes — is relatively easy. Companies are increasingly choosing wireless networks because of their flexibility when adding or changing nodes. Unlike wired networks, there is no additional cost of re-wiring the factory floor or buildings. Additionally, there is less space wastage from housing cables in marshalling cabinets. However, the wireless route offers a bewildering number of choices: from traditional RFID to NFC, Bluetooth, Zigbee, LoRaWAN, LPWAN/NB-IoT, Sigfox, Z-Wave, and 5G.
A comparison of capabilities, power consumption — which matters when battery-operated nodes are desired or when utilizing many nodes — and cost is shown in Table 1. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is uniquely positioned as the technology that not only meets the range, power, and cost criteria of most IIoT applications but is also well-established and easier to setup.
Solution-on-chip
A game-changing technology holds the key to addressing IIoT adopters’ cost, time, and effort concerns. Developed initially to address the shortcomings of active RFID — high cost and high complexity — Bluetooth 5.3-based NanoBeacon technology from InPlay has lower chipset, manufacturing process, and development cost. This results in under $1 for an end-product Bluetooth beacon device that delivers up to 300 m in range.
As the first of InPlay’s NanoBeacon SoC family, the IN100 features an efficient and configurable state machine, non-volatile memory (NVM) for user pre-defined data payload, data SRAM for dynamic data storage, an 11-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), security engine, and power management as shown in Figure 1. Offering an exceptionally wide operating temperature range of -45 ºC to +125 ºC and consuming just 650 nA in sleep mode, the IN100 has a wide operating voltage range of 1.1 V to 3.6 V. Running on 1.4/1.5 V coin cell batteries, the SoC enables disposable beacon tags just as well as wireless smart sensors.
The chip supports BLE beacons in the ISM 2.4 GHz frequency band and a proprietary beacon mode in either the 2.4 GHz band or the MedRadio frequency bands. Apart from its standalone beacon mode, the SoC can pair with a companion MCU so that adverting data payload and control mode can be changed on-the-fly via UART.
The IN100 interfaces with sensors featuring not just digital output but also analog thanks to the on-board ADC, enabling integration with a broad set of sensors, including temperature, humidity, and motion sensors. Its embedded security engine undertakes data payload authentication and encryption to offer a robust defense against unauthorized access.
Additionally, the no-code feature means companies can adopt IIoT without experienced Bluetooth application developers. They can quickly integrate the data generated into off-the-shelf analytics for new insights into their operations.
The IN100 platform includes the NanoBeacon Config Tool desktop app and the NanoBeacon BLE Scanner mobile app for easy customization and configuration.
Configuring the NanoBeacon is as easy as utilizing a programmer board plugged into a computer USB port, launching the config tool, and loading a configuration based on the application requirements. The Config Tool allows for the setup to be run in RAM, which allows for testing and verification on the scanner app before burning the settings into the OTP memory.
The Config Tool GUI (Figure 2) offers the following controls:
1. The UART panel is used for setting UART port and baud rate.
2. The main window allows changes to be made in the selected group of settings.
3. The Application Settings panel offers all configurable option tabs including Advertising Settings, ADC, Plus Count Controller, I2C, GPIO, and GPIO Edge Count. An advanced-mode-setting option handles special device behavior, while the RF Test makes it easy to run various RF tests.
4. The Global Settings panel applies settings to all advertising.
5. The Current Settings panel displays an overview of the current configuration.
6. The Configuration panel allows saving the configuration to a file or loading it from another as well as testing (run in RAM) or burning it permanently to OTP memory.
7. The Advanced Debug Settings offers a way to read/write a device’s register/memory/eFuse.
The mobile app (Figure 3) is unique in offering the following features:
Discovery of advertising BLE devices
Automatic parsing of iBeacon and Eddystone advertising packets
Support for several device filters (device name, minimum RSSI, manufacturer-specific data, company ID, etc.)
Option to sort by RSSI
Importing the configuration from the Config Tool with a simple QR code scan
Automatic detection of IN100 devices matching the imported configuration
Automatic parsing of the advertising data broadcast by IN100 devices matching the imported configuration and displaying the data values in a human-readable format
Support for background notifications of detected IN100 devices matching the imported configuration
Support for exporting logs of captured matching IN100 devices
The low-cost hardware, first available in a small 2.5 x 2.5 x 0.55 mm DFN8 package, has lowered the barrier to IIoT adoption in such end-use applications as robotics and motor control in manufacturing; asset tracking and inventory control in warehousing; traffic and parking management in smart cities; patient monitoring and remote surgery; as well as agriculture without constraints of space and placement.
The IN100 is also available in a tiny 1.1 x 2.0 x 0.35 mm wafer-level chip-scale package (WLCSP) form factor that enables new applications that have challenged designers with stringent space and thickness demands, such as smart pills, printable smart labels, smart textiles, and smart jewelry.
It is no wonder then that NanoBeacon has been named the RFID Journal’s 2021 and 2023 best new product and is among the finalists for the 2023 Best of Sensors award at the Sensors Converge event.
Clear vision, shared mission
NanoBeacon’s no-code technology empowers businesses to take control of the development while reducing demands on in-house IT staff and freeing up resources to focus efforts on their core competence. InPlay continues to build on the effortless IIoT concept with a rapidly growing sensor partner program that offers connected sensor reference design libraries on GitHub.
InPlay has a clear vision to address the IIoT pain points of communication latency, maintenance costs, and security. Our team of semiconductor industry veterans brings to bear on this vision our extensive experience in wireless communication systems, RF technologies, analog mixed-signal circuits, and low-power circuit design.
Find your IIoT solution with us at InPlay-Tech.com.
[1] McKinsey & Co., October 2020, Agriculture’s connected future: How technology can yield new growth, Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/agricultures-connected-future-how-technology-can-yield-new-growth
[1] McKinsey & Co., November 2020, How tapping connectivity in oil and gas can fuel higher performance, Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/oil-and-gas/our-insights/how-tapping-connectivity-in-oil-and-gas-can-fuel-higher-performance
[1] Microsoft Corp., July 2019, Microsoft announces IoT Signals research report on state of IoT adoption, Source: https://news.microsoft.com/2019/07/30/microsoft-announces-iot-signals-research-report-on-state-of-iot-adoption/