Tag: M8

U-blox technology platforms support BeiDou-3

Current u-blox GNSS platforms — from u-blox M8 and beyond — support the recently completed BeiDou navigation satellite system modernizations, improving the availability of GNSS positioning services.

The opening ceremony of the BeiDou-3 global navigation satellite system (GNSS) was held in Beijing on July 31, officially celebrating the expansion of coverage offered by the critical Chinese space infrastructure to a global user base.

As a global supplier of GNSS positioning and wireless communication technologies, u-blox has been driving technological innovation and deeply involved in the Chinese market for many years.

Tests conducted across China and Europe have shown that including the BeiDou system can improve the positioning accuracy of GNSS receivers when multiple navigation satellite systems are tracked concurrently. When signals are partially obstructed, positioning accuracy can be significantly improved by incorporating the BeiDou system.

Data shows that in 2019, the overall output value of the Chinese satellite navigation and location service industry reached nearly 345 billion yuan, an increase of 14.4% over 2018, with the output value expected to exceed 400 billion yuan in 2020.

Graphic: China Satellite Navigation System Management Office Test Evaluation Research Center

Additional Services Provided by BeiDou

The BeiDou system provides a suite of additional services, including satellite and ground-based augmentation services, precise single-point positioning, precise timing and global short message services, laying a solid foundation for BeiDou’s ubiquitous navigation and tracking applications.

Applications of GNSS technology continue to diversify, leveraging the all-weather, all-time, tracking, navigation and timing services it offers. GNSS technology is penetrating deeper into traditional industrial verticals, such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, power and energy, as well as in railway and air transportation, including their infrastructure construction and management.

At the same time, GNSS technology has become an indispensable and “smart” factor in emerging application fields such as the internet of things and the “internet of vehicles,” as well as in innovative applications such as autonomous driving, automatic parking and automatic logistics, and is now commonplace in many industrial and consumer use cases.

“U-blox has been closely following the modernization of the BeiDou navigation system and is ready to work with partners in various industries to promote the expansion of industry applications, expand emerging markets and jointly create a green industry ecosystem,” said Hamilton Chen, China country manager at u-blox.

August 26, 2020
U-blox SARA-R4 cellular modules integrates GNSS technology

Photo: u-blox

U-blox, a global provider of leading positioning and wireless communication technologies, has extended its SARA-R4 family of LTE-M / NB-IoT and EGPRS cellular modules to include variants with the hardware and software features necessary to enable end-to-end security features and services for internet of things (IoT) data, devices and ecosystems.

“The new SARA-R422 product series offers superior security protection, industrial output power to grant best coverage even in weak signal conditions, and everywhere location using state-of-the-art u-blox GNSS technology,” said Rado Sustersic, senior product manager, Product Center Cellular at u‑blox. “These represent valuable functionalities tailored specifically to the LPWA IoT market.”

M8 GNSS. The SARA-R422M8S is pre-integrated with the u-blox M8 GNSS (global navigation satellite system) receiver and a separate GNSS antenna interface. This provides highly reliable, accurate positioning data simultaneously with LTE communications.

The module also supports hybrid positioning strategies, in which positioning data provided by satellite constellations is enhanced with data from the u-blox CellLocate service, ensuring that location data is always available everywhere.

The SARA-R4 series is designed for a wide range of mission-critical IoT solutions such as connected healthcare, industrial monitoring, point of sale and vending terminals, tracking and telematics devices, as well as smart lighting solutions and building automation.

Security. Security features include a unique and immutable root of trust (RoT) for each device, as well as access to a scalable pre-shared key (PSK) management system. This provides the foundation for a trusted set of advanced security functionalities to enable data encryption and decryption, both on‑device as well as from‑device‑to‑cloud.

The choice of PSK-based security, rather than the more complex and computationally intensive public key infrastructure (PKI) approach, strikes the right balance between implementation costs and level of security protection for many IoT applications.

Robustness. All SARA-R422 modules provide 23-dBm output power, allowing the end device to properly operate in all network conditions. This means no issues at cell edges, no coverage issues in weak signal conditions, and, even more importantly, no unwanted re-transmission that shortens battery life by increasing transmit time and overall system power consumption.

The series is designed for long working lifetimes in the field, through the inclusion of support for LWM2M, a lightweight machine-to-machine communications protocol ideal for IoT applications with the possibility of updating the firmware of modules already in the field over the air via the uFOTA (Firmware Over The Air) client/server firmware service provided by u-blox.

The u-blox SARA-R4 series will be presented at Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany, Feb. 25-27, at Hall 3/Stand 3-139.

February 27, 2020
u-blox GNSS Antenna Module Supports All Satellites

The u-blox CAM-M8Q.

u‑blox has introduced the CAM-M8Q GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou/QZSS antenna module. The module integrates a u-blox M8 satellite receiver IC plus SAW filter, LNA, TCXO, RTC, passives and a pre-tuned GNSS chip antenna in an ultra-small 9.6 x 14.0 x 1.95 mm package. The new module requires only a power source for reliable and accurate satellite positioning anywhere in the world.

Combining low power consumption with high-sensitivity, high jamming immunity and concurrent GNSS operation (GPS/GLONASS, GPS/BeiDou, or GLONASS/BeiDou) the surface-mount CAM-M8Q provides a drop-in solution for satellite positioning in an ultra-small form factor, u-blox said.

“Our u-blox CAM-M8Q is perfect for customers designing highly compact products who want to speed up product development while freeing resources for core activities,” explains Thomas Nigg, vice president of product marketing at u-blox. “The CAM-M8Q is a pre-tuned, performance and cost optimized module providing satellite positioning on an extremely small footprint. It is literally an ‘instant’ positioning solution.”

The u-blox CAM-M8Q module is designed for a wide range of applications such as personal locators, handheld navigators, and wearable electronics as well as vehicle telematics systems used for emergency call, anti-theft, insurance and road pricing. Consistent omni-directional antenna performance helps ensure excellent performance regardless of module orientation.

In addition, the CAM-M8Q allows the internal chip antenna to be used as a backup antenna if the design incorporates an external antenna. This benefits companies where there is a risk that the primary external antenna may malfunction or suffer damage, for example in vehicle tracking systems where damage is possible to the external antenna.

The CAM-M8Q module uses the latest u-blox M8 GNSS receiver chip qualified according to AEC-Q100 and is manufactured in ISO/TS 16949 certified sites. Qualification tests are performed as stipulated in the ISO16750 standard: “Road vehicles – Environmental conditions and testing for electrical and electronic equipment.”

The CAM‑M8Q is form-factor compatible to predecessor modules UC530 and UC530M, allowing the upgrade of existing designs with minimal effort.

February 20, 2014