Silicon Labs and Cognosos, a Geo IoT platform provider, collaborated to build a wireless networking device to help automotive industry in managing their inventories. Built on the Silicon Labs Flex Gecko system-on-a-chip (SoC), the Cognosos RadioTrax tag enables employees to perform quick online searches or use their smartphones to pinpoint the location and movement history of cars stored in distributed lots and parking decks, increasing productivity and saving time.
Organizations with large vehicle inventories are frequently required to locate cars at a moment's notice for maintenance, test drives or auctions. Large automotive operations manage thousands of cars and often have multiple lots and parking decks, creating a location tracking challenge that can drastically slow down business operations.
To track vehicles using the Cognosos Geo IoT platform, the end user uses a smartphone application to scan the RadioTrax tag and associates it by scanning the car's VIN or stock number. The vehicle quickly shows up on a digital map, along with instructions on how to reach it. The Cognosos RadioTrax tag is secured to the visor or rear-view mirror of every car and transmits a sub-GHz radio message using patented wireless technology. The RF device includes an accelerometer to detect motion whenever the car is moved. Unlike previous RFID alternatives requiring extensive infrastructure and only showing the last known location of a car, the RadioTrax solution displays the car's real-time location.
