29th May, 2020
Last year, Dublin based company, Danalto Limited, went offshore for the world’s first scaled testing of a new breed of positioning and tracking technology, at the SmartBay test site in Galway Bay. Danalto is a new generation of Internet of Things (IoT) technology company providing products and services for the adoption and easy deployment for Enterprises everywhere, with a specific focus on low energy solutions for asset tracking (without GPS) and asset management markets.
Recognising that there are significant challenges for asset tracking in a broad range of industries (maritime, manufacturing, global logistics) due to the lack of a “uniform” outdoor and indoor positioning technology; significant functional and performance limitations of incumbent indoor or outdoor systems; plus a distortion in overall product and service economics due to proliferation of many positioning modalities, Danalto has developed an end-to-end (indoor and out) product that defines a new category in tracking technologies – the first in twenty years.
As part of the real-world validation of this technology, the Danalto team spent a productive few days at the SmartBay test site putting this technology through it’s paces with help and support from the teams at the Marine Institute and SmartBay Ireland. With a focus on testing the boundaries of performance of this technology in an offshore environment, Danalto has achieved some record results and have gathered a dataset that continues to yield insights into real-world impacts and influences on the product.
With a high resolution GNSS receiver acting as the reference, a suite of tests were performed to assess absolute positioning accuracy, positioning accuracy versus update rates, range and accuracy spreads while running transects from the test site and across Galway Bay. These tests were performed following deployment of a small number of access points that use Low Power Wide Area radio technologies on land, and on the SmartBay buoy deployed at the test site. To give a taste on what was achieved, headline performances indicate that accuracies of 5 metres (1-sigma) can be achieved over distances of up to 7km for zonal and tracking assets
Speaking of the trials at SmartBay, David McDonald – CEO commented
“The SmartBay testing has provided the company with a reference dataset that has helped define and push the boundaries of where we can take this technology. Already we are seeing applications across multiple verticals, where current/adjacent positioning technologies just cannot serve – GPS for outdoor and BLE/UWB for indoor. We see this technology as filling a crucial gap in the market that these technologies cannot address. The SmartBay tests have helped us fill this picture in.”
“It has been fantastic to work with Danalto to help advance their IoT technology to the next stage and to see the team achieve such promising results. Geolocation systems with such accuracy have a significant role to play in the Offshore and Marine Renewable Energy industries both in terms of asset tracking and the delivery of safety critical operations.’’ John Breslin, General Manager SmartBay Ireland.
This project was one of seven projects awarded under the 2018/2019 National Infrastructure Access Programme funding call. The National Infrastructure Access Programme is funded by the Marine Institute under the Marine Research Programme with the support of the Irish Government.
