The Internet of Things for our boats using the example of Sigfox

Plastimo, LVMH or Michelin ... What do these three companies have in common? They use a common network infrastructure commercialized by the operator Sigfox.

Low power consumption

The principle is to provide low power wireless services without roaming or subscription to the carrier.

This is the technology that Plastimo has applied in its boat tracking beacons.

Michelin uses this technology to track containers.

The French solution, proposed by Sigfox, allows you to send up to 140 messages at 12 bytes per day for free without using a mobile phone.

The network covers 92% in France and is deployed in Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Germany, San Francisco (USA) and French overseas departments and territories.

Duplex communication

From Wikipedia: "Internet of things (English internet of things, IoT) - concept data networks between physical objects ("Things") equipped with built-in tools and technologies for interacting with each other or with the external environment. "

The above messages can be of any type, from boat location to fuel tank fill level or even man overboard warning.

This technology operates in Europe in the 806 MHz band and offers a narrowband network (100 Hz bandwidth) with no confirmation or guarantee of delivery.

The data transfer rate is asynchronous and allows information to be received (for example from a ship) or transmitted (to a ship).

In the first case, the payload (transmitted message) will be 12 bytes in size. In the second case, it will be 8 bytes.

These mini messages are enough to convey basic information. For example, to find out the location of the boat, the fill level of the tank, or send a command to an electronic device. This network does not require a subscription and opens up the Internet of Things (IOT) to the world of water sports at an extremely modest cost.

Towards IOT

The main advantage of this network infrastructure is that peripheral devices can operate autonomously for several years.

For example, the NMEA relay - SIGfox, which allows NMEA 2000 data to be sent to a ground station, offers 3 years' autonomy with a set of 3 conventional batteries without any human intervention.

The Internet of Things is undoubtedly one of the next developments in the water sports industry.

17.04.2021