Nordic Semiconductor has unveiled its silicon-to-cloud locationing resolution, that includes Wi-Fi, mobile IoT, and world navigation satellite tv for pc system (GNSS) capabilities. With the launch of the nRF7000 Wi-Fi companion IC, Nordic has turn out to be the world’s ‘first sole provider’ to supply a complete resolution for locationing, from silicon to cloud. This all-in-one resolution, coupled with Nordic’s distinctive technical help, will streamline and expedite the event of purposes primarily based on Wi-Fi locationing. The brand new nRF7000 companion IC is a low-power Wi-Fi 6 chip, optimised for Wi-Fi community scanning on each the two.4- and 5 GHz Wi-Fi frequency bands. When mixed with Nordic’s nRF91 Sequence mobile IoT system-in-package (SiP), the nRF7000 permits SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing. SSID stands for service set identifier, a novel ID made up of case-sensitive letters, numbers, and particular characters like dashes, durations, and areas.
Nordic’s SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing permits the acquisition of correct location fixes in a power-efficient method each indoors and outdoor, throughout each city and suburban areas. The expertise serves as a precious addition to GNSS, notably in areas with sign fading and interruptions, comparable to dense city areas and buildings. The apply of scanning for Wi-Fi SSIDs for locationing is broadly utilized in numerous merchandise, together with smartphones.
The nRF7000 IC is very optimised for ultra-low energy Wi-Fi SSID scanning and doesn’t help information communication by way of Wi-Fi. The optimisation permits Nordic’s Wi-Fi locationing method to supply a novel stability between energy consumption and placement precision.
Wi-Fi locationing
Nordic’s SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing method makes use of the nRF7000 IC for Wi-Fi scanning and an nRF91 Sequence SiP for mobile communication to Nordic’s nRF Cloud. As an alternative of counting on conventional strategies like cell towers or satellite tv for pc alerts, SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing scans the alerts from close by Wi-Fi entry factors to precisely decide a tracker’s location. This reply provides a location accuracy that’s higher than cellular-based however much less correct than GNSS whereas being extra power-efficient than GNSS and virtually as power-efficient as cellular-based.
“Nordic’s dedication to low-power wi-fi expertise permits us to supply extremely environment friendly options for quite a few IoT purposes,” stated Kjetil Holstad, an EVP for technique and product administration at Nordic Semiconductor. “This focus culminates in a fusion of Wi-Fi locationing from the nRF7000 with the mobile and GNSS capabilities of the nRF91 Sequence SiP. Clients now want to come back to only one place for a complete, low-power locationing resolution and world-class technical help. This streamlines the method and saves them important money and time.”
“The launch of the nRF7000 IC makes the Nordic SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing resolution best-in-class,” stated Finn Boetius, a product advertising and marketing engineer at Nordic Semiconductor. “Competing options have a tendency to make use of general-purpose Wi-Fi ICs for Wi-Fi locationing. These are often outsized and never optimised for this particular use case. This makes them each costlier and extra power-hungry.
“The Nordic locationing resolution permits a trade-off between place accuracy and energy consumption,” continued Boetius. “In conditions the place excessive place precision is required, GNSS is the most suitable choice. But when GNSS is unavailable or solely a really tough location is required, you should use cell-based locationing and save battery life; this shall be correct sufficient to let you know during which neighbourhood your system is. If you happen to’re nonetheless with out GNSS and want extra, correct data, you embody Wi-Fi data at the price of just a little extra energy. This shall be correct sufficient to let you know during which home the system is positioned.”
Single improvement surroundings from a single vendor
Nordic’s SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing resolution is supported by the nRF Join SDK, the corporate’s single software program improvement surroundings. When used at the side of Nordic’s nRF Cloud Companies, the SDK permits easy over-the-air updates for software, middleware, and/or modem firmware whereas offering a safe and dependable replace process.
“If you happen to run into technical issues on a venture, coping with a number of distributors can create a large technical help headache,” stated Ville-Veikko Helppi, a product director of cloud options at Nordic Semiconductor. “That multi-vendor headache is eradicated with Nordic’s one-stop-shop resolution.”
{Hardware} availability
The nRF9160 SiP and nRF7000 IC mix to make a compact, power-efficient Wi-Fi, mobile IoT, and GNSS locationing method. To assist builders get began on IoT end-products utilizing this expertise, Nordic has launched the nRF7002 Analysis Package (EK). The EK is provided in an Arduino defend type issue and might be mixed with an nRF9160 Improvement Package (DK).
The nRF7000 Wi-Fi Companion IC and the nRF7002 EK can be found now by way of Nordic’s distribution companions.
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