560+
Active Customers
1000+
Gateway Installed
36%
Growth In Installation
20%
Growth In Revenue
About the Client
Name
A renowned IOT solution provider and hardware manufacturer
Industry
IoT
Location
USA
Business
Offering a solution that intelligently senses activities during lawn fertilizer and sprayer application performed by their client’s technician
Project Overview — IOT Based Technician Performance Measuring System
Our client is a global leader of electronic components and services. It’s one of the most valued manufacturing IPO from Arizona. Being a renowned IOT solution provider and hardware manufacturer, they wanted to develop a solution that could intelligently sense the activities performed by their end client’s technicians during lawn fertilizer and sprayer application. The system has some predefined sets of KPIs and it senses and send important metrics based on those indicators to cloud, which help them to monitor those data and take informed decisions on how the technicians are performing and whether they are spraying the right amount of fertilizers or not, etc.
Hence the current performance measuring system consists of 3 main components to measure technician performance-
Control Box: It is a Raspberry-Pi like device which is the main orchestrator of the system. This box acts as the edge and connects the sensors with the cloud. This is a wired device powered by the truck’s power source.
Technician Performance Module:This is the actual sensor installed over the sprayer/spreader machines and is powered only when the machines are triggered. Once the sprayer/spreader machines get triggered, the TPM gets powered on and sends GPS and orientation data to Control box. This is a wireless device powered by a battery which gets charged when docked on the truck.
IoT Connect Dashboard:This is the cloud dashboard which shows real-time data and other KPI reports. This dashboard is used to monitor values and insights.
Solving the Cloud based Performance Measuring issues of the devices installed on different vehicles with IOT Based Solution
One of the most important features of edge managed sensors is to auto provision it’s sensors with the cloud portal which was lacking. This application during initial installation and set-up, connects with the cloud portal and fetches if any new credentials have been assigned to the gateway and restart the system with the newly assigned credentials. This makes installation of the gateway easy in thousands of vehicles in limited time.
Business problems
-
Lack of auto provisioning
The edge devices had the credentials hardcoded in them which was part of the firmware running on the device. So there wasn’t any option for auto provisioning.
-
Lack of auto-pairing sensors
The TPM pairing was also hardcoded in the gateway thus making it unable to auto pair the sensors.
-
Lack OTA updates for the sensors
The sensor’s firmware could not be updated over the air. Usually , It was manually disconnected from truck and then updated after physically connecting to a PC.
-
Lack of Intelligent power input sensing for auto cut off
Any vehicle installed device or gateway generally gets power from the vehicle and in most cases the power is not cut off even after vehicle ignition is off which leads to battery drain.
Business Benefits and ROI gained
- The application allows the client to accurately measure spraying and spreading tasks assigned.
- It helps them to intelligently assign nearby trucks within that location which needs services.
- With the help of local gateway installation, it is now possible to operate locally even in the event of network failure.
- The client sees an overall growth of 20% in revenue by implementing the system.
560 +
Active Customers
1000 +
Gateway Installed
36%
Growth In Installation
20%
Growth In Revenue
Solutions provided by DreamzTech
Auto provisioning on the gateways
The gateway can automatically provision it’s credentials which is set in the cloud portal during initial set-up of the gateway by an agent installed on the gateway.
Automatically pairing of sensors
The pairing can now be controlled from the cloud and the gateway is automatically paired with the new TPM as soon as a change takes place in the cloud.
OTA updates
Every sensor and gateway is OTA enabled which means any new update in the firmware can be detected and fetched from the cloud portal and gets installed automatically into the sensors as well as the gateways.
Intelligent power sensing
During initial installation and set-up of a gateway with a vehicle, the gateway takes vehicle power voltage inputs and samples them to generate a threshold value which would act as power on/off value for the gateway.
Key Features
Automatic Cloud Provisioning
An agent based software connects with the IOT cloud portal which fetches and provision sensor credentials assigned to the gateway from the Cloud Portal
Intelligent Power Input
During initial installation and set-up of a gateway with a vehicle, the gateway takes vehicle power voltage inputs and samples them to generate a threshold value which would act as power on/off value for the gateway to make sure truck’s battery is not drained out.
OTA Updates for TMP
The TMP or the sensors connect to the the gateway and the gateway can update its firmware over the air once the command is sent from the cloud or when a new TPM firmware is released.
GPS Tracking
Vehicles on duty can be tracked real-time over a map using the cloud portal, to locate and track exact location of all the vehicles as needed and also the spraying zones.
Locally Charging Capability
The TPMs or the sensors could be charged in the vehicle itself using its power adapter and power source of the truck.
Automatic Pairing of TMP with gateway
In an event where sensors are charging or may be out of order, a new pair of sensors can be assigned to the gateway on the cloud and the gateway pairs with the new set of hardware automatically.
Internal Data Store
The gateway stores last x no. of data in an event of network failure and disconnection of the gateway with the IOT cloud portal. All information are synced once the network connection resumes.
How DreamzTech helped and ensure end-to-end solution
Requirement Gathering and Analysis
Onshore Business Analysts from DreamzTech interviewed stakeholders from client premises and gathered requirements for the project. They worked with offshore Business Analyst and Solution Architects for analyzing the business
objectives as discussed with the client.
Project Planning and Execution
The dedicated team assigned to the project analyzed the objectives of the project and the probable solutions to determine technologies to be used, database structure, data flow, and microservices. For developing this application, we planned to segregate the project into multiple phases with separate deadlines.
UAT and Deployment
Our team consisting of Project Managers, Tech Leads, Designers, Developers, and Quality Analysts worked with the client for over 6 months. The team delivered along with several new enhancements following Agile methodology for
technology implementation with continued support.
