SMART POSTBOX WHITE paper

Transcription

1 SMART POSTBOX WHITE paper

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Abbreviations Market Trends Problem Statement Solution Solution Working Solution Highlights Challenges IoT and ITSM - Smart Postbox in Real World Conclusion References Author Info

3 Introduction M2M and IoT are fastest growing segments of IT. With advances in communications technology and increased number of devices getting connected to the internet through M2M and IoT technologies, a visible change is being seen in every field. Millions of devices are getting interconnected and new communication channels are being established to support such huge deployments. This Digital enablement is becoming a crucial area of focus for most of the industries including those which were traditionally not very technologically involved. Making more efficient use of physical infrastructure, Reducing energy consumption, cutting operational costs or enhancing public safety are at the center of focus of the M2M deployments happening. This paper will explore the challenges and opportunities faced during working on Smart Postbox initiative for government postal department and role of Service IT in this connected business. Abbreviations COTS GSM IoT IR ITSM M2M Commercial off-the-shelf Global System for Mobile communication Internet of Things InfraRed IT Service Management Machine to machine

4 Market Trends Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market is expected to be worth $35.16 Billion by The rise of Internet technologies like cloud-based services and the Internet of Things supported by networks of sensors and more affordable communication methods are driving the SMART or DIGITAL initiatives. Manufacturing, utilities, supply chain, retail, healthcare, residential and commercial buildings, and transportation are seeing an aggressive adoption of IoT and M2M. Economic development, geographical location, population and other problems are the few of the major factors driving the roadmap and strategy of its implementation. M2M technologies transfer data of physical assets and devices to a remote central location for effective monitoring and control. The real time information allows decision making to take place also in real time and this maximizing efficiency and investment. Problem Statement According to Wikipedia A smart city uses digital technologies or information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance quality and performance of urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption, and to engage more effectively and actively with its citizens. Postal services form an important and age old connect with citizens for a government, which cant be ignored. For a government postal department the main goal is delivering mails by making on-time deliveries at a low cost. Picking the mails from remote location can be a costly affair. In some countries, there is legal penalty associated with failure to deliver mail on-time. Many postal services in the world are loss making or under stressed profitability due to digital communication onslaught. The cost is mainly influenced by fuel and time consumption. To maximize vehicles efficiency, through better coordination, goods consolidation and route optimisation, access to detailed, accurate and real-time information is crucial. Better resource utilization implies lower operation costs and improved profit margins while maintaining quality of services. On top of this, many postal services do not like any visible physical change in appearance of iconinc postal box on account of any solution effort. They would also like the postbox solution to be maintenance free. Solution Sensor platform or Smart sensors, which combine a sensor and a microcontroller, make it possible to harness the power of the IoT for different market segments by accurately monitoring, measuring and analyzing a variety of status indicators. For sensor platform to work effectively, the microcontroller components incorporate following capabilities: Low-power operation Device with small footprint small Extended battery life to make device as usable as possible Integrated precision-analog capabilities

5 Sensor platform represenst IoT Lite which is a lightweight representation of Internet of Things (IoT) resources, entities and services. IoT Lite allows: Representation and use of IoT platforms (sensors, actuators or specialized devices) consuming less resources Reduce processing time Device directly communicating with Cloud Number of data transactions are low (device mostly in sleep state) Limited number of data packets ( measurement points are less than 10 ) being exchanged And thus IoT enabling dumb low cost assets. The solution comprises of a Smart Postbox monitoring device which sends data and alerts on cloud platform. There is a Service IT application integrated with platform which takes these alerts and converts them into tickets to monetize the business model. Cloud GSM Dashboard Load Sensor Door Sensor Door Sensor IR GSM Battery MailBox Sensor Platform Fig. 1: Solution Design

6 The full gamut postbox solution comprises of a range of hardware modules with sensors, reliable communication and cloud-based platform to transform sensor data into business intelligence which can be easily integrated with the backend system. The solution components are ruggedized for environmental conditions offering reliability in varying environments of temperature and humidity. The Solution comprises of: 1. Sensor Platform a. Base Platform Low cost IoT board which is powerful, easy to program and cost effective b. Sensors Minimum relevant sensors are used to monitor the postbox. i. Load Cell A load cell is a sensor that converts a load or force acting on it into an electronic signal which is in terms of voltage change. ii. Infrared sensor IR sensor is used to detect obstacle in front of its line of sight. Here we have used IR sensor to detect volume of mails in postbox. c. GSM Used for communication between device and cloud. As the mail boxes can be in very remote location possibility of getting any other mode of communication is normally a challenge. Also the solution will fit into thick metal sheet based mail boxes so GSM is ideal choice for the solution 2. Software Modules residing on Hardware a. Data Collection Responsible for collecting and storing data from the sensors. b. Cloud Broker - Responsible for connecting with the cloud platform. c. Data Filter Responsible for filtering sensor data before sending to the cloud. d. Heart beat and fault detection 3. Cloud Platform a. Dashboard - An intuitive user interface which can quickly and easily tailor the monitoring parameters to support customer s specific monitoring needs. Available for both PC and mobile. b. Dashboard comes complete with highly-customizable screen including charts and maps. c. Logic Platform This is the sensor logic platform on cloud. Data from device is received and further analyzed and processed. Data is fed to a complex event processing engine to transform it to a meaningful information. 4. Service IT Application a. Data from cloud platform is taken as input b. Manages ticket/issue based on event

7 Solution Working First Mail Arrived + Weight (gm) Door open + Weight (gm) Cloud GSM Dashboard Health Check and Battery Alert Fig. 2: Solution Working The device is fitted inside postbox and caters to following events: 1. First Mail arrived When first mail arrives, weight sensors senses change in weight. Alert sent to cloud via GSM indicating mail arrived. 2. Mail removed When postal worker arrives to collect mails. Door sensor detect door opening. Solution records weight and send to cloud via GSM indicating mal removed. 3. Battery draining Sends alert if battery power reached below a threshold limit. 4. Heartbeat Sends alert to cloud periodically indicating device working. 5. Postbox full IR sensors detects volume in postbox. If it reaches a certain limit, sends alert to cloud indicating Volume Full Indicating urgent clearing required

8 Solution Highlights 1. Solution size slim fits multiple types of postboxes 2. Solution health-check a. Heartbeat Solution sends a heartbeat to PC application after every configured time b. Watchdog Watchdog timer is present in solution to enable recovery from possible hardware/ software malfunctioning 3. Postbox Capacity Check - IR checks the volume of mail in the postal box. In case volume of mails reaches beyond a certain limit, it sends an alert to report possibility of mail overflow. 4. Real-time alert Challenges 1. Load Cell The heart of any weight measuring system is the load cell. Load cells are transducers which provide the information not generally obtainable by other technology. Load cells are designed to sense weight under a wide range of environmental conditions. To benefit the most from the load cell, a good understanding of the technology, construction and operation is required. It is equally important that the user selects the correct load cell for the application. Provide necessary care like, regularly inspect load cell and weigh system in extreme weather conditions, check for corrosion damage to the load cell and mounting hardware. These factors are important to understand to ensure trouble free weighing for a long period of time. Load Cell Selection - Load cell selection with respect to trouble free operation is done in terms of right capacity, accuracy class and environmental protection. Overload is still the primary reason for load cell failure. Capacity selection - In this solution the purpose of load cell is detection of first mail. The upper limit is selected to avoid damage due to excess weight. Capacity selection requires a fundamental understanding of the load related terms and load related factors associated with systems. A load cell performs within specifications of its limit to bear load. Beyond this point, even for a very short period of time, the load cell will be permanently damaged. Installation - The installation of load cells into a practical usage requires careful attention if the system is to be safe and accurate. The performance of a load cell depends primarily on its ability to deflect repeatedly when load is applied or removed. Load cells are mainly used in conjunction with special mounting systems. Load cell support is designed in such a way that it avoids the effects of various lateral forces, bending, torsion moments and vibration. These factors compromise the performance of the load cell leading to its permanent damage.

9 2. GSM band GSM cellular system works on a variety of frequencies. The GSM standard defines GSM frequency bands and frequencies for the different spectrum allocations used around the globe. GSM frequency allocations fall into three or four bands, and there is a possibility the solution might be used in different band requirements. For most global roaming dual band, tri-band or quad-band SIMS operation is used. GSM module selection depends on the number of bands it supports. 3. Battery Selection The postbox solution needs a non-rechargeable Battery source with a life span of 2-3 years for the operation of electronics, as there will be no access to any established power source at the actual site. Solution demands monitoring Battery output voltage & detect the threshold, to intimate the need for Battery replacement. Apart from this additional power solution required to generate the voltages required for the identified COTS operation from the Main Battery source. Following tasks were covered under battery selection: Battery Life Analysis Identify right battery pack Keeping in view the size of postal box, battery should be slim and easy to install even by non technical postal workers. Identify COTS item for the DC-DC convertors Check for Battery voltage monitoring solutions Develop a power architecture with the COTS, provide voltage reverse polarity, short circuit protection by external means Testing standalone & integrating with the rest of the COTS devices 4. Pricing Selecting a quality load cell for solution is the first step in obtaining weighing accuracy. The load cell is a piece of machined metal that bends when mechanical force is applied and converts the mechanical force into an electrical signal. The bending of load cell depends on the metal s elasticity. Load cell pricing is directly proportional to its accuracy. Battery- Higher the voltage store capacity, higher the battery cost. Another factor which determine price is energy density which is watt-hour (Wh) capacity. Energy density is directly proportional to cost of IoT and ITSM - Smart Postbox in Real World Operation Technology supports physical value creation. It therefore comprises the devices, sensors and software necessary to control and monitor. Service IT provides carrier relationships, software applications, and APIs required in launching, managing and monetizing a connected service business. IoT is about using increased connectivity to communicate data across a variety of devices to improve control and enhance decision making. The broadness of the IoT segment ensures that support teams in every market area are ready to respond to the new technology capabilities. IoT will have a huge impact on IT service management system. ITSM is already into managing millions of assets, historical data, and their lifecycle. IoT solution takes advantage of ITSM system for managing large number of devices and their operations.

10 ITSM framework offering for Smart Postbox solution: Use stored data for analytics. Smart postbox has the ability of instantly report its own events or malfunctions. This data is used to open/manage operations of a particular postbox. Perform predictive analysis to prevent future failures. Real-time dashboard Cloud platform management to ensure integration with framework. Incident management - Categorize operation/service issues and automate workflow. Knowledge management to provide support staff with systems to solve issues and allows other users to access the system to reduce the pressure on the service desk. ITSM manages assets; provide support and services with a single, easy-to-use application. Automating such processes will be the key to successfully managing the complex IoT system of the future. Conclusion The Internet of Things promises a revolutionary change in enterprises productivity and individuals quality of life. The concept of Smart City is a mean to enhance the quality of life of citizen and has been gaining importance and becoming priority for most of the Governemnets. The rise of Internet technologies like cloud-based services and the Internet of Things supported by networks of sensors and more affordable communication methods are driving the SMART initiatives. Solution to the problem cannot be in overhauling the current systems but in enhancing the existing infrastructure and making those scalable. Our Postbox solution is low-cost, easy to install and maintain which offers no change in physical appearance of iconic postal boxes of government services. Making these services more efficient by optimal use of physical infrastructure, Reducing energy consumption, cutting operational costs and enhancing public safety. References

11 TM Author Info Harsha Vachher Harsha has been working with ERS Practice Team as a Senior Technical Lead, helping to drive forward a number of new internal initiatives. Monika Parashar Monika has 16 years of experience of design and development of embedded devices majorly in consumer electronics vertical. Vishal Chaudhary Global Operations Director, heads Product Management (part of Engineering and R&D HCL). Vishal works out of Silicon Valley, USA and IoT is one of his areas of specialization. For more details contact: ers.info@hcl.com Follow us on Twitter: & LinkedIn: View our blog-site: Visit our website: Hello, I'm from HCL's Engineering and R&D Services. We enable technology led organizations to go to market with innovative products and solutions. We partner with our customers in building world class products and creating associated solution delivery ecosystems to help bring market leadership. We develop engineering products, solutions and platforms across Aerospace and Defense, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Software, Online, Industrial Manufacturing, Medical Devices, Networking & Telecom, Office Automation, Semiconductor and Servers & Storage for our customers.