24 December 2020
Alistair Fulton, VP & general manager, Semtech’s wireless and sensing products group
It is universally acknowledged that we are currently living in unprecedented times where the “new norm” is an increasingly contactless world. At the centre of this world is the realisation that it is more important than ever to be capable of monitoring and analysing people’s movements as well as the contacts that they have had as individuals. Alistair Fulton, Vice President and General Manager of Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group, believes that the need for data transmission and analysis in this altered environment is driving greater adoption of long-range (LoRa), low-powered sensor-based technology that is capable of gathering and communicating in real-time accurate and powerful information across the most robust of wide area networks (WANs).
In recent years, LoRa-based networks have matured and increasingly have been adopted in a wide range of industries and applications across the world. Typical applications have included development of intelligent buildings (such as apartment blocks, offices, hospitals and medical care facilities, intelligent lighting, traffic management, factories and warehouses) which form the backbone of today’s smart cities and communities. Other applications include intelligent supply chains and logistics, smart agriculture, intelligent metering and smart industrial control. COVID-19 has now accelerated the need for solutions for a new range of critical sensor-based applications and cities who have implemented smart technology will be able to take advantage of the technology.
As the world learns to live with COVID-19, a large number of businesses have begun a wholesale reassessment of how they operate in order to make the workplace a safe environment for employees. There is now a strong focus on companies preventing staff from becoming infected as production levels increase and industry begins to revive. The problem, as some recent cases have shown, is that total protection can be extremely difficult to achieve in such high-density environments as the construction industry, logistics, power generation, manufacturing and the chemical/petrochemical sectors.
The disturbing impact the pandemic has been having on industry and health professionals on a global basis has driven a growing level of interest and demand from customers, even though supply chains on all sides have been disrupted. Areas that have seen significant developments recently include tracking applications (with greater emphasis on monitoring individual people, their movements and even their health condition and temperature). This can also feed into occupancy monitoring using door sensors – a ‘smart doorkeeper’ solution – as well as proximity sensors and motion sensors. Another area of growth that has been led by the new requirement to be as contactless as possible is the use of LoRa and the IoT to control entire manufacturing lines to minimise human interaction and so remove the risk of cross-contamination.
However, using LoRa it is now possible to create IoT solutions that can deliver the kind of data that is required to monitor, manage and limit the likelihood of workplace infections. For example, workers can be fitted with sensor-based devices that warn them if they come within a set distance of others. The same sensors can be used for contact tracing should a worker be found to have contracted the virus. Using LoRa technology, up-to-the-minute data can be shared via Cloud-based applications to ensure compliance with the very latest government legislation and guidelines while offering workers in even the most intensive environments the maximum possible level of protection.
In this new world – and even in a post-pandemic environment – there is now a firmly established market for network providers and systems integrators who are able to deliver cost-effective, low power yet reliable IoT solutions based around the kind of unintrusive technology that LoRa provides. Already, governments and other bodies are realising the win-win potential for embracing such proven yet innovative data communications technology that is both off-the-shelf and versatile and is capable of being implemented within the tightest of timeframes without the need for those implementing it to have extensive knowledge of IoT technologies. For example, Semtech’s Smart Building Reference Kit enables companies to deploy their own smart building applications within existing buildings without the need for rewiring or concerns about signal strength from dense walls.
We are at an inflexion point where city planners and business leaders now have access to the data necessary to be able to make informed decisions, therefore removing the guesswork as to how to make cities more efficient, safe and commercially successful. The value of data is now understood and appreciated not only by network developers and CTOs but also by CEOs, CFOs and COOs as future decisions can deliver measurable results quicker and more reliably than before. History shows us that key events can significantly change both the way we live, and the world we live in. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to create long-term sustained changes to our work, our lives and our cities. Technologies such as LoRa will be helping accelerate the development and implementation of large-scale IoT systems that make smart cities become the new norm.
By Alistair Fulton, VP & General Manager, Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group
