GNSS tracking enables the location of devices to be tracked precisely – even down to the centimeter level. The value of this can be extremely high to deployments that rely on timely, accurate location data but the benefits place substantial pressures on device designers and developers. Beyond the immediate challenges of engineering devices so they can receive GNSS signals and mitigate situations in which signals are unavailable, developers also need to ensure costs are minimized. The final piece of the puzzle, which can be insurmountable in very compact battery-powered devices, is to ensure GNSS power consumption is sustainable.
GNSS tracking devices that fail to optimize power consumption could result in the need to recharge or replace batteries and this could come at a cost that undermines the operational or commercial viability of an end product. With many GNSS tracking devices required to remain in operation for long periods of time, they are also often in hard to reach locations and deployed in considerable volumes. This makes physical action in the form of battery replacement or recharging impractical.
How to minimize GNSS tracking energy consumption
An elegant solution is to minimize GNSS tracking device power consumption so replacement or recharging is not needed during the life of a device. Several techniques, enabled by technology advancements or design innovation, exist to help engineers achieve minimal energy consumption without compromising the effectiveness of the tracking solution. These were explored in a recent Quectel Masterclass, titled ‘How to achieve low power consumption for efficient GNSS tracking’.
The Masterclass, presented by Goran Banjac, GNSS Field Application Engineer at Quectel, details the importance of low power consumption in GNSS tracking and shares strategies for achieving low power consumption. The Masterclass examines the challenges of balancing power efficiency with tracking performance and showcases real-world experiments and results.
Low-power functions in GNSS modules, such as cyclic tracking mode, are detailed along with fast time-to-first-fix (TTFF) and switching off parts of constellations can help minimize active operation time and thereby enhance longevity. Rich experimental data on power consumption metrics in a range of low-power modes and GNSS combinations are provided in the Masterclass. In addition, the accuracy achievable under a variety of power saving settings is appraised.
There is an unavoidable trade-off between power consumption and tracking performance, but the right balance can be found to optimize energy consumption within acceptable levels of reliability that a specific application needs. In this way battery size and type can be chosen to maximize lifespan while minimizing space taken up and the need to recharge. Critically, this does not lead to unreliable or insecure tracking solution, simply the removal of wasted energy consumption and the turning off of unnecessary communications and features.
A simple example would be to limit the frequency of communication for non-urgent use cases while a more complex instance would be to ensure a device does not repeatedly struggle to connect to a constellation when it could either attempt a different connection or wait for a defined time until the connection can be made quickly, thereby maximizing active operation time.
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