Ultra-low-power asset tracking

Get years of battery-powered asset tracking with u-blox’s award-winning SARA-R510M8S LTE-M module with integrated M8 GNSS receiver and positioning in cloud service.

Tap into the power of the cloud to track moving assets for years with the u-blox SARA-R510M8S cellular module and u-blox CloudLocate, our cloud-based ultra-low-power tracking solution. Specifically tailored to the needs of highly power-constrained IoT asset tracking use cases requiring a few position updates per day or less, the solution saves ten times more power than stand-alone GNSS power saving approaches.

The solution integrates multiple u-blox technologies into a fully-fledged silicon-to-cloud offering:

• The u-blox R5 LTE-M platform with best-in-class power-save-mode performance
• A u-blox M8 four-constellation GNSS receiver
• The u-blox CloudLocate positioning in cloud service

All three technologies are integrated inside the SARA-R510M8S module, providing unmatched communication and positioning performance with extra-long battery life. 

Awarded the 2022 IoT Evolution Asset Tracking Award from IoT Evolution magazine, the leading publication covering the Internet of Things, the solution simplifies and speeds up the development of reliable and secure ultra-low-power asset trackers.

Delivering years of battery life

The ultra-low-power asset tracking solution stands out for the tight integration of its hardware and services components. A u-blox M8 GNSS receiver embedded inside the SARA-R510M8S LTE-M cellular module initially receives a three-to-five-second snapshot of incoming GNSS signals. After initial processing, it transfers a 12–50-byte raw measurement message to the module’s cellular modem, which then uploads it to the cloud. In the final step, CloudLocate computes the asset’s position and provides it to the end user’s enterprise.

Use cases for the SARA-R510M8S module with CloudLocate

Target use cases for the SARA-R510M8S with CloudLocate include battery-operated IoT asset tracking devices requiring months to years of power autonomy. Typically, they would require position updates with reasonable position accuracy a few times per day or less. Critically, target use cases would only require location information in the cloud, not on the tracking device itself.

Various asset tracking applications fulfill these specific requirements.

• Container tracking
• Pallet tracking
• Expensive equipment tracking