Cellular IoT asset tracking: Overcoming 5 key challenges

You can’t always be there to keep an eye on your business’ physical assets or precious cargo. Asset tracking provides visibility to high-value or mission-critical assets wherever they need to be in the world, and through the journey to get there. That’s where cellular-connected IoT asset tracking comes in.

Global cellular IoT asset tracking delivers insights to the two most fundamental questions when tracking assets — where things are, and how things are doing. While the goal seems straightforward enough, there are many complexities to cellular IoT asset tracking. And when left unchecked, these complexities inflate costs and even create losses.

Stay on top of the challenges that come with cellular IoT asset tracking deployments. Let’s go over a few of the most prevalent ones and how to mitigate them.

Understanding Cellular IoT Asset Tracking

Businesses leverage advancements in data and connectivity by attaching tracking modules and sensors to their assets for monitoring and management — providing an IoT solution to asset tracking. Apart from collecting the data, the timeliness of receiving data from moving assets is core to asset-tracking businesses.

Why choose cellular for IoT asset tracking connectivity requirements?

The ubiquity of cellular networks allows for seamless global coverage with different types of connectivity solutions to choose from. For tracking assets, cellular connectivity enables IoT asset tracking through its:

1. Widespread coverage
2. Standardization

By going cellular for IoT asset tracking, assets can be monitored both indoors and outdoors, across city boundaries, and even across countries.

BONUS: Cellular connectivity has become increasingly cost-effective and power-efficient for IoT asset tracking with the rise of IoT-specific cellular technologies such as NB-IoT and LTE-M.

How cellular connectivity enables IoT asset tracking

Cellular connectivity plays a pivotal role in IoT asset tracking by providing a reliable and widespread communication pathway for tracking devices to transmit location and status data back to a central system. This information is critical for real-time tracking of assets’ movements and conditions, essential for logistics, fleet management, and tracking cargo.

This real-time data transmission is facilitated by the cellular network’s extensive infrastructure, which can often reach areas that are beyond the scope of traditional Wi-Fi or wired internet connections. As a result, businesses and organizations can track their assets with high accuracy and reliability, optimizing logistics, enhancing security, and providing valuable insights into their asset-tracking operations.

Challenges to prepare for in IoT asset tracking

According to research, 58% of IoT projects had been unsuccessful. And even for successful IoT businesses, there are still many ways to optimize for efficiency. We listed out some key challenges that engineers might face when designing IoT asset tracking systems, cellular or otherwise.

Whether you are in the design stage, testing, deployment, or even on your next upgrades, the issues below are worth considering to prepare for potential bottlenecks in cellular IoT asset tracking operations.

Five frequent problems to address in IoT asset tracking

1. Battery

Battery-powered devices are common for cellular IoT asset tracking. This makes power efficiency — extending battery life and optimizing power consumption — essential for successful design and ensuring reliable tracking operations.

Premature battery failure will disrupt operations, which can be anywhere from small inconveniences to dissatisfied customers and even financial losses. In the context of cellular IoT asset tracking, low power consumption is paramount.

Design considerations:

• Power efficiency is a primary engineering focus to ensure reliable and efficient asset tracking.
• Low power consumption is critical especially for fleet vehicles during idle or off states.
• When using sealed battery systems where replacement or recharging is difficult or impossible, maximizing battery lifespan becomes even more critical.
• According to this guide, aim for ultra-low power consumption, potentially lower than one milliamp (and between one to five milliamps during idle states).

2. Data management

It almost goes without saying how important strong security is for all types of data. Unsecured data can be breached or leaked.

In cellular IoT asset tracking, private data, which includes personal, industrial, and operational details, is collected and sent over networks to the cloud. Many data points are collected from various locations and at different times during an asset’s journey. This makes security in data transfer even more complex and critical for cellular IoT asset tracking.

Protective measures:

• Use strong authentication and access controls.
• It must be encrypted and have strict access rules from where it’s collected to the cloud.
• Regular security checks are important to keep information safe.

→ As a side note, did you know that VPN can also help secure IoT devices? Read about it here.

3. Connectivity

Network options have a role to play in making devices efficient as it does relaying data from the device to the cloud. Some of the most common problems when selecting cellular connectivity for global IoT asset tracking include:

• Lack of access to multiple networks per country
• Permanent roaming restrictions
• Lack of insights into network connectivity
• Building and managing networks and costs

Coverage gaps disrupt operations and cause costly downtimes. You have to make sure that connectivity doesn’t just relay data from device to cloud, it should also work to optimize power and data consumption — ultimately lowering costs.

This is why connectivity shouldn’t be an afterthought, nor should it be based on vendor-locked agreements. Connectivity considerations have to be scoped out early, as well as who the connectivity provider will be, to avoid costly disruptions to global operations.

For example, robust connection with networks on Onomondo’s steered SIMs improve coverage and make connectivity more efficient (most networks do SIM-steering based on agreements). Additionally, international roaming presents complexities as assets cross borders. Roaming can incur additional costs, experience variable network performance, and face regulatory hurdles, all of which impact the seamless tracking of assets on a global scale.

4. Compliance

Moving assets across locations can be met with regulatory complexities. Designing cellular IoT asset tracking systems requires careful attention to compliance and regulatory factors to ensure that the devices meet the standards for quality assurance, security, and performance:

• Compliance with Standards: Ensure that your devices adhere to both international and local standards, which may vary significantly across different markets.
• International and Local Regulations: Address international and local market regulations to ensure smooth cross-border operations.
• Quality Assurance: Implement rigorous quality checks to meet performance standards and maintain device reliability.
• Data privacy: Prioritize data privacy and align with global data protection laws to mitigate regulatory risks.

Early integration of these compliance measures is crucial for streamlined, lawful deployment of asset tracking systems.

5. Scalability and integration

Building a cellular IoT asset tracking system would require integration of different components. Seamlessly integrating different systems into a platform for your business is essential, but doing so introduces complications. Features might be good to have, but integrating them to your current configuration might not even be supported yet.

Then there are issues with scaling. Infrastructure must not only support greater data traffic but also enable complex device management to be handled efficiently. So how do you handle changes in scale and operations while maintaining performance and avoiding bottlenecks that compromise tracking accuracy? Consider the following:

1. Performance Scaling: As the number of assets increases, the infrastructure must be enhanced to:
   • Maintain high performance
   • Prevent bottlenecks
   • Ensure accurate tracking
2. Integration of New Technologies:
   • Provision for OTA (over-the-air) capabilities to manage devices remotely.
   • Implement remote updates and maintenance to handle an expanding IoT network.

→ Watch this deep-dive into future-proofing cellular IoT devices from a technical development perspective.

Finding solutions for cellular IoT asset tracking

Engineers and IoT decision-makers must proactively anticipate and navigate these challenges to leverage cellular IoT technology to its fullest. The earlier these issues are considered in the life cycle, the better chances that the cellular IoT asset tracking systems are not only successful but also resilient and future-proof. The journey from concept to successful deployment demands a balance of innovation, strategic planning, and vigilant management of the components that comprise the IoT asset tracking solution.

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More expert insights about asset tracking

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