Blog Archives | Ground Control

As climate change continues to pose significant challenges to our planet, innovative technologies are emerging as critical tools in our efforts to mitigate its effects. Satellite tracking and the Internet of Things (IoT) are at the forefront of this technological revolution, providing invaluable data and insights across various domains.

From monitoring endangered species and tracking glacial retreat to combating illegal fishing and preserving forest health, these technologies are playing a vital role in understanding and addressing climate change. This blog post explores five key ways in which satellite tracking and IoT are transforming the fight against climate change.

1. Tracking Endangered Species

While estimates vary, scientists agree that extinction rates are far higher than the natural rate, due to loss of habitat, climate change and poaching. A 2019 United Nations report puts the figure at 30 to 50 percent of all species going extinct by 2050. This loss of biodiversity threatens ecosystems that support all life – and there are further negative implications for medicine, agriculture and recreation.

Technology has a vital role to play in arresting this decline. Animal tracking through collars and tags helps in several ways: firstly, the data captured can help scientists prioritize habitat conservation, and justify seasonal closures of sensitive areas to the public.

Secondly, it helps us understand the impact of climate change, and both natural and human-driven disasters on wildlife, such as how sperm whales were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Finally, animal tracking can prevent poaching, both by helping to predict endangered species’ movements, and in turn, the hunters trying to evade detection. In this instance, tracking collars are often also combined with intelligent camera traps, giving security forces more information on the threat, so they can respond appropriately.

Satellite connectivity is essential for tracking animals traveling outside of cellular coverage. Modems such as the Iridium 9603N are increasingly small and lightweight, and can be built into the tracking collars for mammals starting at 15 Kg body weight.

2. Monitoring Glacial Retreat

Glaciers are shrinking rapidly, with profound impacts on local hydrology, rising global sea levels, and the acceleration of natural hazards such as the creation of icebergs. However, the processes that go into glacial retreat are not well understood, leaving gaps in models designed to predict future impact.

Environmental scientists are working hard to plug these gaps, not least the team at the University of Southampton, who build and deploy Subglacial Probes and Ice Trackers. The Ice Tracker is a web-connected RTK GNSS-solution which measures glacier change and flow. It utilizes the RockBLOCK 9602 to transmit its data reliably and cost-effectively, with no dependency on terrestrial network availability.

After rigorous testing in Iceland, the goal is to roll out this technology around the world to see how different glaciers respond to global warming, and thus create more accurate models for predicting their impact.

Similarly, scientists from the Water and Ice Research Laboratory at Carleton University have developed a low-cost, satellite-enabled device to track icebergs. In the Arctic, as the sea ice retreats, more large icebergs are being calved; at the same time, shipping and fishing vessel traffic in the area has increased by 111% and 41% respectively.

Despite advances in monitoring, ships do still collide with icebergs; in the northern hemisphere, from 1980 to 2005, there were 57 incidents involving icebergs. With the addition of more icebergs and more ships, this risk has exponentially increased.

Tracking – and therefore being able to better predict the behavior of – icebergs mitigates the risks to marine vessels, and also supports scientific research into the effects of iceberg melt on ocean infrastructure and marine life.

The Cryologger is a data recording and telemetry platform that has been ruggedized so it can operate at Arctic temperatures. It utilizes a GNSS receiver, accelerometer, magnetometer and a RockBLOCK 9603 to transmit the data packets.

Data retrieved has already contributed to a database of iceberg tracking beacon tracks, providing insight into drift characteristics and distribution.

3. Combating Overfishing

According to Fishforward.eu, 29% of the world’s fish stocks are overfished; and a further 12-28% of the fishing world-wide is constituted by illegal and unregulated fishing. This is driven by demand, with each individual eating around twice as much fish as was consumed 50 years ago.

Right now, it’s other marine life that suffers the impact of overfishing. 70% of specific shark populations have been wiped out, and more than one-third of sharks, rays and skates are threatened with extinction.

And if nothing changes, in a few years time – some researchers predict as soon as 2048 – the world’s oceans will be virtually empty, leaving billions of people without their key source of protein, and millions of people missing their livelihood.

There are several solutions to this problem, as outlined by the Marine Stewardship Council; among them robust and enforced regulations preventing overfishing. The means of monitoring compliance is a Vessel Monitoring System, or VMS.

The device used to capture the telemetry on a vessel’s present and historical location, fuel used, catch size etc. needs to be tamper-proof and withstand the harsh marine environment. It needs to be reliable, accurate and have no connectivity ‘dead areas’.

VMS specialists Dualog (trading as Fangstr) and Pivotel chose the RockFLEET for their transmissions; it can use cellular when within range of a terrestrial network, and switches to the globally available Iridium satellite constellation when cellular is not available.

RockFLEET-being-used-for-Vessel-Monitoring-Systems

4. Preventing Deforestation

Forests are both affected by climate change, and a key defense against it. Forests capture and store carbon, but when forests are cleared, burned or degraded, they release that carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change.

Deforestation – the clearing of forests, usually to plant crops in its place – contributes 12 to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Degraded forests also contribute; a degraded forest may emit more carbon than it captures, becoming a carbon source rather than a carbon sink. Degradation typically occurs when illegal logging operations take place; loggers bulldoze their way in, extract high value trees, and drag them out, leaving behind roads, clearings and ravaged undergrowth.

The Rainforest Foundation UK is supporting national and local authorities by providing an early warning system for illegal logging activities. They enlist the help of the indigenous people whose way of life is also being threatened by deforestation; when they see signs of illegal logging, mining, or oil spills, they use the free ‘ForestLink’ system to send an alert to the authorities.

When cellular coverage isn’t available, the ForestLink system switches to the global Iridium satellite constellation, allowing the monitors’ smartphones to exchange data anywhere with a clear view of the sky. Rainforest Foundation chose the RockBLOCK Plus for its ruggedized exterior and economical and reliable transmissions.

5. Measuring Ocean Currents to Understand Global Climate Patterns

Our oceans absorb most of the sun’s heat, and then ocean currents distribute that heat around the globe. NOAA describes this as a conveyor belt, moving warm water and rain to the polar regions. There the water cools and sinks, which has the effect of pushing cold water towards the equator, helping to moderate temperatures. Without them, temperatures would be far more extreme – very hot at the equator, very cold at the poles – and much less of Earth’s land would be habitable.

Climate change is believed to be affecting ocean currents; the currents are not only warmer, but also 15 percent faster (measured between 1990 and 2013). This is damaging marine life and speeding up the melting of the sea ice at the poles, leading to global sea level rises. It’s also likely to disrupt the conveyor belt; if the water reaching the poles is too warm, it won’t sink. This could have the effect of slowing down or even stopping ocean currents in some places, notably the Gulf Stream. Western Europe would feel very different without the effect of this warming current.

High sea surface temperature (SST) is an important parameter in predictive weather and climate modeling. To capture this data, fixed and drifting data buoys are deployed all over the world to take measurements of surface and subsurface water temperature, atmospheric pressure, winds, salinity and wave patterns. And for the drifting data buoys, their historical location data allows scientists to profile ocean currents.

Because many of these data buoys are outside of cellular coverage, satellite connectivity is essential to transmit their data. Ground Control works with a number of data buoy companies, who need a satellite modem that’s reliable, robust, and delivers global coverage. RockBLOCK 9603 is a popular choice as it’s cost effective and has very low power consumption, allowing for the data buoys to drift for several years on battery power, or a small solar panel.

Some of Ground Control’s data buoy partners include Sofar Ocean, Maker Buoy, Akrocean, Running Tide and MTE Instruments.

In Summary

The integration of satellite tracking and IoT technologies offers powerful solutions to some of the most pressing environmental challenges we face today. By enabling real-time data collection and analysis, these technologies help scientists, conservationists, and policymakers make informed decisions to protect our planet.

As we continue to innovate and expand the applications of these tools, their role in combating climate change will only become more significant. Embracing and investing in these technologies is essential for creating a sustainable future for generations to come.

Can we Support You?

Based in the UK and USA, Ground Control designs and builds satellite-enabled tracking and IoT solutions. We have over 20 years’ experience, and work with leading satellite network operators to ensure all of our customers get the best combination of coverage, cost, data throughput and latency.

If you have an asset that’s moving in and out of cellular coverage, we ensure that you always stay connected. We work directly with end users like Digital Forest, and often indirectly through our partner network of companies building animal tracking collars and data buoys, for example.

Please email hello@groundcontrol.com or complete the form, and we’ll reply within one working day.

LPWAN – Low Power Wide Area Networks – enable users to connect sensors / endpoints over large distances. They’re lower cost and consume less power than cellular, and while their data capacity rates are lower, there’s enough bandwidth for most IoT applications.

This article focuses on satellite-enabled LPWAN. Satellite comes into the equation when the sensors you’re connecting are so remote there’s no cellular infrastructure at all. At the moment, that leaves you with two options:

Use an unlicensed LPWAN technology such as LoRaWAN, mioty or Sigfox to connect your sensors, then backhaul the aggregated gateway data via a satellite transceiver;
Or, connect your sensors individually to a satellite transceiver.

The Differences Between Licensed and Unlicensed LPWAN

Before we settle into the main topic, some readers may find a quick explanation of licensed / unlicensed LPWAN helpful. The former leverages licensed radio frequency spectrum, which means connections use dedicated frequencies, making them more reliable. They also offer higher data capacity rates than unlicensed spectrum. Currently the best known networks – NB-IoT, LTE-M – rely on cellular infrastructure. Because of this dependency, they’re not used for extremely remote applications.

However, satellite LPWAN also falls into this category – services like Iridium’s Short Burst Data (SBD) and Certus 100, and Inmarsat/Viasat’s IsatData Pro (IDP) and BGAN M2M, all leverage licensed spectrum. Satellite LPWAN has no dependency on terrestrial infrastructure, so is usually deployed where there isn’t any – i.e. outside of population centers.

Unlicensed networks share frequencies with all other unlicensed users, so reliability in high-traffic areas may be an issue. They also have capacity issues because of the frequency spectrum they operate in – which is only suitable for very small amounts of data (LoRa has a maximum data rate of 50 Kbps). However, unlicensed LPWAN is lower cost, and devices generally require a little less power than networks operating in a licensed spectrum, although both perform well. For example, NB-IoT devices will typically operate for up to 10 years, and LoRa devices for up to 15 years, using battery power.

LoRa is the most widely adopted and well known unlicensed LPWAN, but there are many more here, including SigFox, Helium, RPMA and mioty. In the case of LoRaWAN, there are commercially operated networks that you can buy into, or you can set up your own private network.

If you’re in an area with cellular infrastructure, you can weigh up the pros and cons of licensed and unlicensed networks, and choose the solution best suited to your needs from a long list of options. In a remote area without cellular, you’re back to the choice we posed at the beginning: connecting individual sensors via licensed satellite LPWAN, or using an unlicensed LPWAN to aggregate many endpoints, which has no dependency on cellular infrastructure.

In terms of projected market share, China’s state-wide adoption of NB-IoT makes it the global leader; remove China, however, and the competing technologies are more evenly distributed (data from IoT Analytics). In this chart, which looks ahead to 2027, LoRa is the leader with 36% market share, followed by LTE-M at 35%, and NB-IoT at 23%. LoRa is on the way down from its peak, however, and NB-IoT shows the strongest growth.

How Unlicensed LPWAN Works with Satellite

While there are many options for unlicensed LPWANs, because of its dominance, we’re focusing on LoRa.

LoRa networks require a gateway, or several gateways, depending on the size of the network, where the sensor data is aggregated. If the gateway is within cellular coverage, cellular can be used for data backhaul, but in remote applications, satellite is the best option for backhauling the aggregated sensor data. Co-locating your gateway(s) with a satellite transceiver like RockREMOTE ensures you can communicate with your sensors from anywhere on the planet, as long as you have a clear view of the sky.

Diagram showing the various satellite options to backhaul LoRaWAN gateway data

The RockREMOTE series is particularly well suited to this pairing as it features edge computing capabilities. This enables systems integrators and developers to optimize their data transmissions to send only what’s needed, keeping the airtime cost down. It can also send your data via TCP/IP, or the more efficient messaging service, IMT. The Cobham Explorer 540, is another solid choice; this uses the BGAN M2M service which is wholly TCP/IP based, and is very cost effective if you need an IP-based transmission. If you have mains power, and need to move a lot of data – MBs rather than KBs – Starlink is also worth exploring.

NB: LoRa is a communication technology. LoRaWAN is a media access control (MAC) layer protocol which makes it easier and more secure to manage communication between gateways and endpoint devices (read a better explanation). So while LoRa can be, and is, used without the MAC layer, in the context of a wide area network, LoRaWAN is far more likely to be utilized.

LoRaWAN:

Has a maximum data rate of 50 Kbps
Works better for stationary applications
Works best in open, flat areas such as farmland
Is license free, therefore low cost
Drains very little power – battery life can be up to 15 years

Has strong security measures, with built-in end-to-end AES-128 encryption
Can be built independently of terrestrial networks and commercial providers
Works well when gateways are co-located with a satellite IoT transceiver
Is tried, tested, and in use today for remote IoT applications.

When to use Individually Connected Devices

The main advantage of LoRaWAN is that it’s very low cost, but that cost increases if you’re using a commercially operated LoRaWAN. If you don’t, you’ll need to build the network yourself, which involves purchasing gateways and a network server, writing firmware, and creating the connections (read how to build a private LoRa network).

This could well be worth the effort, but it depends on the number of sensors you’re connecting, and their location. LoRaWAN is a ‘single-hop’ technology; each connected sensor communicates directly with the gateway or hub. If there’s a long distance between device and hub, or there are geographical features like mountains or forests, this can impede the signal. So, there are instances where individually connecting sensors to a satellite modem is faster, more reliable, quite possibly cheaper when time and expertise is factored in, and more efficient.

For example, American Signal Corporation has hundreds of tsunami warning stations positioned off the coast of Thailand, to prevent a repeat of the Boxing Day Tsunami that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

These stations are located in the ocean, far from cellular infrastructure and mains power, and need to be both completely reliable and able to transmit their data in as close to real-time as possible. The latency and reliability issues of LoRaWAN make it unsuited to this application – as does the fact that some of the sensors are positioned well over 10 km apart.

Instead, each station has its own satellite transceiver – the RockBLOCK Plus – which uses the Iridium Short Burst Data airtime service. This checks all the boxes: it’s a low cost, low power, reliable, low latency means of transmitting data from anywhere on Earth with a clear view of the sky.

This solution is being used in many scenarios like this where the data must get through, and there’s no cellular infrastructure, and building a LoRa network (or similar) would be cost and/or time-prohibitive.

Diagram-showing-how-tsunami-alert-system-works

Satellite LPWAN:

Works well in both mobile and stationary applications
Has no limitation on the distance between your sensors – they can be positioned as far apart as your application requires
Has a huge amount of flexibility in terms of data rates – up to 464 Kbps (although the lowest power consumption comes from the message-based services of Iridium Short Burst Data, and Inmarsat/Viasat IsatData Pro)
Can operate on a solar powered battery for 10 years (depending on data rates and frequency of transmission)
Is secure by design – it’s very hard to intercept the data while it’s in space, and firewalls, VPNs and private lines protect the data once it’s earth-bound again
Has no dependency on terrestrial infrastructure
Will work in any location, including mountains and forests, as long as there is a clear view of the sky
Is not affected by extremes of temperature or adverse weather conditions.

Coming Soon: NTN NB-IoT

This is developing technology, with the goal of offering a single SIM to work on multiple cellular and satellite networks.

While the technology exists today to seamlessly switch between cellular and satellite networks, the devices enabled with this technology are using proprietary modems that only communicate with a single satellite network. Relatively few are produced, and they’re more expensive than their cellular-only counterparts. Moreover you’re tied into that satellite network, and if you wanted to use an alternative satellite network, you would need to buy a completely different device.

3GPP standardization is poised to disrupt this model. Firstly, there are many more cellular IoT-connected devices than there are satellite IoT-connected devices, and so production of these dual-function modems would benefit from economies of scale. They are likely to be lower cost than today’s proprietary satellite IoT modems.

The other potential benefit will be the ability to switch between satellite network operators in much the same way as you can switch between cellular networks today. Every satellite network that is 3GPP compatible with coverage in your area should be able to offer you service. It’s by no means certain, but we think this is likely to increase competition and lower pricing.

So, the impact will be to make NTN NB-IoT not just possible but also cost-competitive over the long term. That said, it will still be a more expensive solution than an unlicensed LPWAN – and for good reason, as it retains the higher data capacity rates and reliability benefits of licensed spectrum.

The lower cost modules may well move the tipping point between individually connected endpoints / sensors vs. building a LoRa network. Individually connected endpoints, as we’ve already discussed, have the benefit of being easy to set up, reliable and low latency. The number and location of the endpoints determine the choice of network today, and that will be true with NTN NB-IoT, too. But as the cost will be lower, the point at which it makes sense to use LoRa (or similar) will, we anticipate, come at a higher number of endpoints than it does today.

It may also open up new use cases for geographically dispersed endpoints that could utilize satellite IoT today, but the proprietary modems make this cost-prohibitive. Applications in Agriculture, Utilities, Mining and Oil & Gas are likely to emerge as the device and airtime costs decrease.

NTN NB-IoT:

Has a maximum data rate of 159 Kbps up, 106 Kbps down
Works well for stationary and slower-moving mobile applications
Offers greater reliability as the network is more exclusive
Strong support for user identity confidentiality, authentication and integrity
Doesn’t require a gateway, but you will need – once available – a dual mode satellite and cellular SIM card in each device
Will no longer need terrestrial cellular infrastructure once Satellite Network Operators (SNOs) make their satellites compatible with the 3GPP standard
Should support route switching in the future, keeping costs low and predictable.

What is 3GPP?

3GPP is a global initiative to basically stop telecommunication infrastructure developers from all doing their own thing. Since 1998, they’ve successfully driven standardization across cellular development. Release 17, in 2021, included satellite connectivity to the technology mix for NB-IoT delivery – often referred to as NTN (non-terrestrial network).

If an orbiting satellite network meets the 3GPP standard, someone, or something, on Earth that has a similarly 3GPP-compliant modem in their device could pass out of cell tower range, and immediately switch to satellite, with no interruption of service, and no need for separate hardware. All the excitement about direct-to-device technology stems from this, but “Rel-17” also unlocks NB-IoT’s use in extremely remote locations, with satellites performing the task of cell towers.

What About Non-Terrestrial LTE-M?

LTE-M is, like NB-IoT, a licensed LPWAN designed to operate on cellular networks. It’s a little more expensive because it offers higher bandwidth transmissions, and supports roaming: it was designed to work for mobile and fixed IoT applications, vs. NB-IoT that is best used in fixed IoT applications. Both are part of the broader 3GPP standard, and so the structure exists to use satellites to perform the role of cell towers in space.

At the time of writing, the satellite network operators moving the fastest towards NTN architecture are using NB-IoT as their preferred technology. However, Starlink will use a form of LTE when it brings an IoT proposition to market, and other satellite network operators may well follow suit.

What’s Best for Your Remote Application?

There is a lot of hype around 3GPP standards-based technology, and when it comes to fruition, users will benefit from lower cost modems and possibly, because of increased competition, lower cost and more predictable airtime bills. Many major satellite network operators – Iridium, Inmarsat, Viasat, Starlink – have announced plans to support a form of this technology (either NTN NB-IoT or LTE) in the future.

There are companies already offering this service, but at the time of writing, they have patchy coverage, and data capacity rates are very low. The full value of this technology will be realized when there is global availability and multiple service providers – which is currently looking like 2026-27.

If you’re building your remote application right now, your choice of LPWAN depends on your application. If your devices are very widespread, LoRaWAN may not be your best choice given the higher risk of packet loss between the sensors and the gateway(s). It is cost-effective, particularly when paired with a satellite transceiver like RockREMOTE which supports edge computing, thus allowing you to optimize your transmissions. If you can manage with a degree of data delivery uncertainty (due to the capacity challenges in the unlicensed radio frequency spectrum), it’s a good choice.

For devices spread over a wide geographical area, connecting each sensor or sensor array to a satellite IoT transceiver ensures that you will receive your data, with no dependencies on terrestrial infrastructure, and no reliability issues due to contested spectrum. If you choose a service like Iridium Short Burst Data, or Inmarsat IsatData Pro, you’ll receive your data in close to real-time, too. Connecting sensors in this way costs more, but even now is less expensive than people imagine. For mission-critical applications, it’s the most reliable, fast and secure means of capturing your widespread remote sensor data.

Can we help you with your remote application?

If you’re connecting endpoints in remote locations, we hope you’ve found this article useful. We are experts in satellite connectivity, and work with multiple satellite network operators to ensure our customers get the best combination of coverage, reliability, price and latency.

If you’d like to speak to one of our team, please complete the form, or email hello@groundcontrol.com. We’ll come back to you within one working day.

Energy consumption and industrial ambition toward becoming Net Zero are of global consequence. On the macro scale, as we build more and utilize more digitally and electronically, “the ongoing electrification of everything” makes it imperative to find ways of conserving and managing power consumption.

Integrators and engineers have managed this for some time, born of necessity and innovative thinking. In the last decade, IoT has revolutionized measuring and monitoring the impact of industrial energy consumption and its environmental impact. This involves developing ecological monitoring, renewable energy use cases, HVAC systems for facility management, and IoT energy monitoring systems for better efficiency in utilities and factories.

The Energy Impact and Growth of IoT Development

However, the world’s data demands continue to grow, not least from the massive processing power required by AI / machine learning technologies. UK National Grid CEO John Pettigrew called data centers a source of systemic stress, saying, “Power demands are expected to increase by 500% over the next 10 years.”

A peer-reviewed study in the same report estimates that AI power consumption could reach between 85 and 134 terawatt hours (TWh) annually by 2027. (That is in the range of what Sweden and Argentina each use in a year and would constitute about 0.5% of what the world currently uses.)

AIOTI, an industry alliance tasked with advancing Europe’s digital and green transformations, has identified energy efficiency as one of its 18 strategic research and innovation priorities. The goal is to evolve IoT technologies into an integrated digital ecosystem to advance hyper-automation in all industrial sectors. Specifically, AIOTI identifies three research topics: energy harvesting, with its potential to remove the dependency on batteries for power and their need for periodic replacement; the energy efficiency of hardware, and the energy efficiency of data processing. More on these in our satellite use cases later.

Why is Energy a Design Constraint in Satellite IoT?

Satellite IoT is a means of transmitting very remote IoT data over satellite. Satellite modems can be paired with individual sensors or can backhaul the data from LPWAN gateways. Power usage is often a constraint within these types of IoT applications because mains power is frequently unavailable. Therefore, it matters that the system’s energy consumption and a ‘Low Power Mindset’ are part of the IoT system design process.

Five Power Conservation Examples in Remote Satellite IoT

Here, we explore five design considerations in Satellite IoT that have helped remotely manage IoT energy consumption. Utilizing what energy is available, making it go further, and where possible, reducing the industrial carbon footprint.

1. Minimize What Data You Send, and how Frequently You Send it

Low power design considerations were recently explored in our webinar for IoT Central, covering Data Optimization, Interoperability, Coverage and Power Consumption in Satellite IoT design. Deep-diving into the section on power, the more data bandwidth a satellite IoT system utilizes, and the more frequently it sends data, the more power-hungry the satellite IoT device will be.

A key takeaway from the discussion: since both the send and idle mode for the device consume energy, keeping the device send mode to a minimum and utilizing a satellite device with low resting energy consumption in idle, are important considerations. This video snippet discusses the key design considerations for preserving power in Satellite IoT design. For a longer summary of the webinar, you might enjoy our post: A Guide to Satellite IoT for Cellular IoT Specialists

2. Data Processing at the Edge

Every time data is sent over a network, there is some level of energy cost in terms of power used; this is no exception with satellite networks. Satellite IoT connectivity requires more power than terrestrial networks to establish and maintain communication links with satellites in space. Edge computing utilizes light algorithms and task offloading to execute intensive tasks at the network’s edge. It can conserve energy on satellite IoT devices, make smart task decisions, decrease task delay, and reduce the volume of data sent over the network.

RockREMOTE’S edge computing capabilities have helped reduce system energy by analyzing data at the data collection point. Its capabilities include reporting by exception, defining data prioritization, and the ability to compress the data at the edge before sending it over the satellite network. With LTE-M, Certus 100, and IMT capabilities, the device switches between networks for uninterrupted connectivity. This provides 100% connectivity, balancing data transfer costs, appropriate network selection, and minimizing network energy consumption. This short video talks more about RockREMOTE’s edge processing capabilities in a use case on African Game Reserves.

3. Energy Harvesting – Solar Energy for Satellite IoT Sustainability

Energy harvesting can provide an ‌inexhaustible electrical energy supply captured from renewable sources: solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, tidal, and wave energy. Depending on the application and the supply, this energy can supplement or replace a primary cell or battery. Harvested energy can be used to power the circuitry directly or stored in the buffer until needed.

A recent use case for RockBLOCK Sense involved a customer measuring water levels in fracking sites in northern Canada. The localities were remote, unmanned, and unpowered, and temperatures frequently dropped below -32°C (-25.6°F). The solution needed to be self-powered, extremely robust, and reliable. The RockBLOCK Sense satellite transceiver is highly ruggedized to cope with harsh weather conditions and has very low power requirements. Accordingly, it consumes less than 380mW with a five-minute value transmission interval. Connecting it to a small solar panel array, combined with a lithium-based cell, harvested more than enough solar power to send two daily messages over satellite, plus an immediate alert if water levels exceeded predefined parameters. You can read more about this energy-saving project here.

4. Power and Cabling Efficiencies with Power over Ethernet (PoE)

Piggybacking off existing power supply with PoE eliminates the need for a separate power supply by delivering DC power to a device from the existing Ethernet infrastructure. Strictly speaking, this example means that the power cabling already exists, and a power supply for other technology is available to share. Think offshore platforms, ships, or buoys to bring to life some, (not all) examples of this ‌use case: some power, but with limited cellular connectivity. Utilizing PoE to supply the satellite device reduces standby power consumption and overall energy usage.

A centralized power management approach can also enable more efficient resource allocation and reduce energy waste compared to individual power adapters for each connected device. PoE standards, such as IEEE 802.3af and IEEE 802.3at, include power-saving mechanisms like sleep modes and low-power states. This enables connected devices to operate more efficiently and intelligently, managing power consumption based on usage patterns leading to overall energy savings.

End view of the RockREMOTE Mini with ports

The pictured RockREMOTE Mini keeps satellite device power consumption very low, with less than 0.25W in receive mode. In addition to its optimized power consumption, it has two power supply options: a 10-30V supply or PoE+ (802.3at). This flexibility provides a convenient and efficient solution for powering the device and eliminates the need for a separate power source, reducing installation cost and design complexity.

5. Pulse Width Modulation in Remote Locations

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is a technique for controlling the amount of power delivered to an electronic device by rapidly switching the power on and off. The key to PWM is controlling the duty cycle, which is the percentage of time the signal is “on” versus the time it is “off” during each cycle.
Imagine a light dimmer that can adjust the brightness of a light. Instead of providing a steady flow of electricity, the dimmer rapidly switches the light on and off. The average brightness of the light depends on the proportion of the time it is on versus the time it is off:

High Duty Cycle: If the light is on 90% of the time and off 10% of the time, it will be very bright.
Low Duty Cycle: If the light is on 10% of the time and off 90% of the time, it will be dim.

PWM works similarly with other devices, like motors, where it controls speed, or heaters, where it controls temperature.

In the vast, sparsely populated Australian Outback, isolated and off-grid locations such as cattle stations and small farms require satellite technology to manage solar power systems for water pumps, electric fences, and communications equipment, ensuring continuous operation. Ensuring the battery life of the equipment is essential to keeping everything in operation and managing energy usage efficiency.

The RockBLOCK Switch’s PWM controls the battery charging current from connected solar panels. By adjusting the duty cycle, the charge controller regulates the voltage and current, preventing overcharging and optimizing battery life. The Switch device is designed to operate with minimal power, which is crucial for keeping the remote installations running without over-drawing energy from the overall system. Triggering on/off switching can be key to managing resources, conserving, and managing the power supply, and extending battery lifetime in remote and/or unmanned locations.

With power supply and energy management as consistent considerations in developing satellite IoT projects, these use cases highlight the variety of innovations that have been used to navigate the physical, logistical, and infrastructure limitations of remote off-grid locations. Once the parameters of the Satellite IoT project are established, often the most appropriate solution is obvious. Our engineers love a challenge, so if there is an energy constraint holding your remote IoT project back, get in touch, and our technical and development teams will be happy to help.

Would you like to know more?

If you’re tackling an remote connectivity challenge, with constraints on power, we can almost certainly help.

Call us on +44 (0) 1452 751940 (UK) or +1.805.783.4600 (USA); email hello@groundcontrol.com, or complete the form.

We have over 20 years’ experience designing and building satellite communication devices, and our expert team is standing by to offer support and suggestions.

The drone market is expected to surpass $101.1 Billion by 2032, and while military applications continue to dominate, commercial applications – parcel deliveries, remote safety inspections, environmental monitoring etc. – will make up a substantial part of that revenue.

In light of this anticipated growth in drone usage, we wanted to discover if people felt more or less comfortable about commercial vs. military applications, and whether the benefits outweighed their reservations. In March 2024, we surveyed 500+ American adults, and compiled the results in this eBook.

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What surprised us about the data

Two surveys from 2021 which engaged European audiences suggested that we could anticipate a broadly positive response. These surveys indicate that 68% of British citizens believe that drones will positively impact their lives, and 83% of EU-based respondents are positive about the use of drones in cities.

Our survey was more nuanced. Overall, 55% of respondents supported commercial drone applications, and 57% supported military drone applications. This is a more conversative response than previous studies, but what was particularly interesting was how much variation there was in the results. People in different household income, age, and industry groups held, in some cases, quite dramatically different views.

55%

Supported commercial drone applications

57%

Supported military drone applications

65%

Had concerns about drone hacking / interception

32%

Felt that drones were environmentally friendly

Which demographics are most likely to support military applications?

We offered two options for military applications: “passive”, which we defined as surveying and monitoring, and “active”, defined as identifying and destroying targets. The average result was 59% in favor of passive military drone applications, and 54% in favor of active applications.

This materially differed when the data was refined by demographic. Those in with household incomes over $100,000 p/a were more likely to approve of both passive (72% approval) and active (69% approval) military applications. Men were also more likely than women to support these use cases, with 63% approval for both from men, vs. 55% and 48% from women.

The larger deviations from the norm came from people working in Education & Research and Healthcare, and the under 30s, all of whom were less likely to support military drone applications – particularly active.

Respondents-favor-drone-adoption-technology

American attitudes support drone applications

Who is most likely to support commercial applications?

We divided commercial drone applications into five: Parcel Deliveries, Prescription Medicine Deliveries, Remote Safety Inspections, Environmental Monitoring, and Emergencies.

Opinions ranged from just 37% in favor (medicine deliveries) to 72% in favor (emergencies). Departing substantially from the average results were people working in Technology, who were more comfortable with drones being used across all commercial applications listed, but particularly positive about remote safety inspections – 72% in favor vs. 58% average.

People working in Healthcare were the most opposed to drones being used for prescription medicine deliveries, at just 18% in favor, and 58% opposed.

What concerns do Americans have about drone usage?

The biggest concern our respondents had was security – the possibility that drones can be hacked or intercepted. This view was most strongly supported by people working in Technology, of whom 76% cited this as a concern.

54% of respondents cited privacy – concerns about the information drones can capture and store – as a concern, and this rose to 62% for people working in Education & Research.

Fewer respondents were concerned about the potential for job losses – just 27% – but this rose to 38% for people working in Healthcare, possibly correlated with their discomfort around prescription medicine deliveries.

American attitudes to drone security and data 2024

What benefits do Americans perceive can be derived from drone usage?

People were pretty reserved in their responses to this question, with no single option getting selected by more than half of respondents. The most popular response was ‘Faster Deliveries’, at 49%, followed by ‘Lower Cost’ at 38%.

The over 60s departed from the average here; slightly more saw the cost-saving benefit (42%) but only 38% thought deliveries would be faster, and only 22% thought that using drones would be safer than the processes they replaced (vs. 30% average).

Fewer than a third of respondents thought that drone usage was better for the environment, which was a surprise; analysts have reported that drone-based applications could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 2.4 gigatons by 2030.

Leading us neatly on to…

What can the drone industry learn from these results?

While regulation remains a significant barrier for wider adoption of commercial drone applications, it will be overcome: market forces demand it. Solutions for the challenges of communication and collision avoidance already exist, and the industry received $4.8 billion in investment in 2022 alone. And at least from the operators’ perspective, the benefits, both projected and empirically demonstrated, outweigh the drawbacks.

But our respondents were, for the most part, cautious in their responses, particularly the over 60s, people in lower income households, and people working in Healthcare and Education and Research. Put simply, companies planning to deploy drones should consider how they communicate the benefits and address the concerns of citizens – particularly in applications that could directly affect their day to day lives.

How Can We Help?

Ground Control delivers satellite IoT modems that allow drone operators to remotely command and control UAVs, USVs and UGVs. We use the global Iridium satellite constellation, which is well suited to mobile, low latency, high-reliability use cases.

If you’re a drone manufacturer and would like to know more about our connectivity options, please complete the form, or email hello@groundcontrol.com; we’d love to talk.

The natural disaster detection IoT market is projected to grow from $6.6bn in 2023 to $37.3bn by 2030, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27.85%, according to 360iResearch.

Natural disasters are a growing phenomenon, due to rising temperatures and climate change. IoT has an important role to play in monitoring environments and detecting natural disasters. It can help to warn, and somewhat mitigate the risk to, vulnerable populations, wildlife and commercial centers from events such as earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, hurricanes, flooding, wildfire and temperature extremeties.

Further, technologies such as Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are helping to predict, measure and pre-empt environmental change. This minimizes costs both in terms of lives, businesses, and urban infrastructure.

This innovative use of technology will help save lives through preventive measures and early warning systems. But while global warming is – the clue is in the name – a global concern, early detection and data insight isn’t happening at the same rate across the globe.

Worryingly, in the same parts of the globe where early detection is needed most, the data to facilitate this is missing or not being gathered. With the growth of IoT connectivity, all countries should be able to utilize environmental monitoring and disaster recovery data to their advantage, but this isn’t actually the case.

The Problem of Missing Data

The problem of ‘missing data’ forms part of an environment research paper for iopscience. The authors report that data gaps and missing data are commonplace across real world datasets, including global disaster databases. Global disaster databases, and recorded disaster data, are increasingly utilized by decision-makers and researchers to inform disaster mitigation and climate policies. So with significant chunks of data missing, the researchers question the conclusions drawn and the risks of unreliable study results. After all, a reliable evidence base is a prerequisite for effective decision making.

So why is there an inconsistency in the data that is gathered and why are some countries not collecting the data they need? There are numerous reasons cited, including technological limitations in the surveillance of disaster events (which we will explore in more detail here), and factors such as the income status of the affected country, and the types of disaster event that occur. Global databases on environmental extremes, and analysis of their impacts, is largely carried out by research organizations in western nations. This means that there is a bias towards events in these countries. It’s an ‘unnatural disaster’ that some parts of the globe are still not able to monitor and measure the environmental changes that could save lives.

The commercial world is being called upon to build the infrastructure needed to supply NGO, local communities and emergency services with the information they desperately need. Fixed sensors can capture temperature change, rising water levels, earthquake shock readings; drones can monitor volcanic activity and large bodies of water. This information delivers the insight necessary to inform and reduce loss of life.

However, this comes with some significant investment, namely the network infrastructure needed to transmit the data, and ongoing funding – hence there being more complete data sets from countries of higher economic GDP.

If the infrastructure does not exist to support environmental monitoring, or research is inhibited by poor or intermittent cellular connectivity, what can be done? Terrestrial networks are expensive to set up, and vulnerable themselves to natural disasters. As we reported in an earlier blog post, during a prolonged spell of rain in 2022, 1,200 cell towers were impacted in South Africa alone due flooding and landslides.

Many countries and localities are simply not equipped to provide the power or networking to support cellular IoT. Not only is network coverage much lower in least developed countries than in the rest of the world, but mobile data usage can also be significantly more expensive.

Solving the Communications Infrastructure Problem

Satellite IoT can solve the communications infrastructure problem. It provides global connectivity to locations where cellular connectivity is missing or intermittent, enabling the kind of sensor data required for environmental monitoring to be transferred to and from the farthest reaches of the earth. All that’s needed is a satellite transceiver, antenna and clear view of the sky.

As an example, Slide Sentinel provides a fully automated landslide monitoring system using Real Time Kinematics. This provides early detection and forewarning as well as limiting the use of invasive and expensive landslide monitoring drilling techniques. The system is capable of reliably detecting catastrophic landslides and centimeter movement in land mass and offers valuable information about gradual changes in land soil displacement.

It’s a low-cost solution consisting of a network of remote low power sensors that detect fast linear slides and eventually lower soil movements such as creep. Long range low-power (LoRa) radio connections on these sensor nodes wirelessly transmit three-dimensional acceleration, Real Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS coordinates, and sudden shifts in soil movement to a gateway. This data is backhauled via satellite to the cloud from where it can be exported to anywhere on Earth.

It’s not just the connectivity options that can limit research and data gathering. Harsh external conditions can make devices and data capture vulnerable to the elements. No two use cases are the same, and devices used for monitoring and sending data need to withstand temperature, wind and precipitation extremities, as well as the conditions during an actual disaster.

A great example is the work by American Signal Corporation (ASC). The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (known as the “Boxing Day Tsunami) devastated lives, businesses and homes across SE Asia. An estimated 227,898 people died across 14 countries. With no early warning system of the approaching tsunami, no early evacuation procedures were undertaken, despite there being several hours between the earthquake and ensuing tsunami, with devastating consequences and huge loss of life.

Following on from the disaster and working with the Thai Government, ASC installed a nationwide network of devices, including high powered speaker arrays, sensors and alerting devices together with bespoke management software to alert people to threats posed by tsunami, floods and other possible natural/manmade disasters. The critical nature of the solution required a connectivity option that could provide global coverage and network reliability with the lowest idle power requirement. They also needed a device that was robust, and could withstand the elements and the test of time.

They opted for Ground Control’s RockBLOCK Plus satellite IoT transceiver to backhaul data from 1500 alerting devices across the country. The RockBLOCK Plus is waterproof, ruggedized, highly UV resistant and has a marine-grade Kevlar cable, making it ideal for long term outdoor deployment in the most severe environments.

Counting the Cost of Satellite Connectivity

While satellite has a reputation for being expensive, it has decreased in the last few years, with diversified services and new entrants bringing prices down. The investment locally is not as expensive or as vulnerable to damage as building the cellular network infrastructure. With global satellite coverage already in place, satellite IoT provides a means of gathering intelligence without the greater cost of building and managing network infrastructure development.

Satellite networks already contribute to programmes of meteorological measurement providing global data mapping of environmental change. However, further gains can be made if localised monitoring and data management are made accessible. Satellite IoT lends itself to solving this problem due to the flexibility with which data can be packaged and sent.

Local sensor data can be passed in small data packets and transferred as messages without the chatty protocol overheads of IP connectivity. With a little development expertise and guidance, the data costs can be kept to a minimum so that you’re only transferring the essential information that is needed. If it’s life saving data that’s helping monitor global environmental health, it really shouldn’t cost the earth!

Would you like to know more?

If you’re tackling an remote connectivity challenge, with constraints on power, budget and latency, we can almost certainly help.

Call us on +44 (0) 1452 751940 (UK) or +1.805.783.4600 (USA); email hello@groundcontrol.com, or complete the form.

We have over 20 years’ experience designing and building satellite communication devices, and our expert team is standing by to offer support and suggestions.

This article aims to help cellular IoT specialists integrate satellite IoT into your infrastructure. Many of the challenges you face in cellular connectivity – interoperability, coverage, power consumption, data optimization, etc. – have parallels in satellite connectivity. If you know what to expect, you can plan accordingly, and save yourself time and money in the long run.

Consideration #1: Data Optimization

“Just because it’s a free lunch doesn’t mean you should eat as much as you can” – Robby Hamblet, TEAL

So, you’ve connected 90% of your sites with cellular, but the final 10% are out of cellular coverage, and satellite is your only option. In this common scenario, the first challenge is the volume of data you’re expecting to push through a satellite connection. As more and more IoT devices use up more and more bandwidth, even in cellular IoT, developers are being encouraged to be more circumspect with how much bandwidth they really need.

This is an acutely important consideration in satellite IoT. Satellite Network Operators (SNOs) have a limited amount of licensed spectrum, and satellite “masts” are really far away (as much as 35,786km). SNOs consequently charge a relatively high premium. This is coming down, but it’s not realistic to expect parity with cellular given that operating costs are high, and capacity is limited.

Cost, therefore, is a major incentive for systems integrators and developers to start thinking about how you can reduce the amount of data you send over satellite. The other incentive is power consumption: sending a lot of data tends to mean larger antennae which can’t operate without mains power. And as we’re talking exclusively about IoT here, we’re assuming the 10% of sites you’re unable to connect with cellular are also fairly unlikely to have mains power too.

The most practical solution? Edge computing. There are lots of ways in which you can utilize some intelligence at the edge to restrict how much data you send over satellite. You can reduce the frequency of your transmissions, batching them to make better use of an IP connection. You can report by exception. You can define and tag your data priority, thus allowing certain types of data to pass through more frequently than other, less critical, types of data.

If your devices can control your data in this way, perfect. If not, sophisticated satellite terminals like the RockREMOTE have flexible edge computing capabilities that will allow you to create rules to limit your transmissions there.

Real World Example

A renewable energy company we work with has a sensor array to detect wind turbine interactions with birds and bats. The gateway for the sensors expects to be able to pump data out continuously as long as there’s an open connection: potentially fine if you have a cellular connection, but expensive and inefficient if you are using satellite. Our solution was to add a timed firewall to the connected satellite transceiver. For one hour a day, the firewall is dropped, and the gateway sends its aggregated data in batches. Simple and effective.

Consideration #2: Interoperability

You may have had to navigate situations where there have been multiple communication protocols (WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee etc.) to contend with, particularly in legacy infrastructure. If so, you’ll already appreciate the benefit of planning ahead and considering the future development of your network. If it’s at all possible satellite IoT will factor in, knowing the application protocols in most common use will help.

There are basically three options for IoT communication over satellite:

1. Use an IP service like Iridium Certus 100 or Inmarsat BGAN M2M

This plug-and-play option is the easiest means of sending data over satellite, but not the most efficient or cost-effective way. However, there’s plenty you can do to optimize your data (see above) to make it work better for you if you’re not in a position to change your application.

2. Use a distributed MQTT broker solution

If you’re using MQTT, you’re in luck: Ground Control’s IoT Gateway effectively places an MQTT broker at either side of a satellite transmission, re-formatting the data and managing the connection, message queuing, retries etc. automatically. We use Iridium Messaging Transport to move your data, which is message-based. You can read more about this in our previous blog post, but suffice to say, messaging is the most cost-effective way to transmit data over satellite, and this is an easy way to leverage those efficiencies.

3. Re-engineer your solution to use messaging

This low-level integration will allow you to use one of the proprietary messaging services offered by SNOs such as Iridium Short Burst Data, or Inmarsat’s IsatData Pro, both extremely cost-effective means of sending data via satellite. However it does usually require development work to make your data compatible with a messaging service.

Real World Example:

Most developers want an easy life (nothing wrong with that!) and will choose the path of least resistance. So it’s our job to make sure that you can use satellite IoT connectivity no matter what protocol you’re using. In one instance, a customer was unable to change their in-field sensor equipment or their server, but they did need to change the means by which data was transported between the two. We added some programming to our RockREMOTE device to effectively imitate the older equipment it was replacing, so the sensors could ‘talk’ to it with no adaptation required by the customer. And at the server end, our IoT platform Cloudloop enabled us to reformat the data and transmit it to the legacy server in the same vein.

Consideration #3: Coverage

Lack of cellular coverage is most likely what brought you to satellite in the first place, but not all satellite network constellations are created equal. Firstly, you need to ensure that the satellite network(s) you’re considering have orbiting satellites that can ‘see’ your devices’ location. Only one satellite IoT network – Iridium – is truly global, although others, including Inmarsat / Viasat, come close.

Then you need to consider satellite density and architecture. Newer satellite networks may have just one or two satellites in orbit, which means you’ll get your data very slowly. On the plus side, they charge relatively little for airtime. Like many things, you get what you pay for: pay little, and you’ll get data once or twice a day with no delivery guarantees. Pay more, and you’ll get virtually real-time data from a network heavyweight trusted by the military and critical national infrastructure. It’s over to you to decide the frequency and criticality of your data transmissions.

Further, you need to look at the precise location of the asset / application you’re extracting data from. If it’s surrounded by trees, mountains, buildings etc. then there’s a good chance it will have difficulty ‘seeing’ the satellite. Our engineering team put a quick guide together on this topic that’ll help you avoid making an expensive mistake.

Real World Example:

A water utility customer has sensors set up to monitor its remote facilities for unauthorized entry – manhole covers, containers and buildings, principally. The individual sensors are LoRaWAN networked, and deliver their data to a single gateway. The gateway is positioned next to our satellite transceiver, and both are carefully located so that the satellite IoT device has a clear view of the sky, and can transmit the aggregated and optimized data from the gateway. We’ve used the same set up for safety systems on a boat; locally networked sensors talking to a gateway co-located with a satellite transceiver. UHF radio also works well for this purpose.

Consideration #4: Power Consumption

If your device is so far removed from civilization that there’s no cellular coverage, there’s a reasonable chance that there’s a limited power supply, too. Larger VSAT dishes like the types required to provide Starlink and OneWeb broadband internet services need mains or generator power to operate; but satellite IoT-specific terminals can be, and often are, battery powered.

You can preserve battery power in a number of ways we’ve already touched on: sending data less frequently. Sending less data, period. Using a message-based connection instead of an IP-based connection. Making sure your antenna has a clear view of the satellite network so no power is wasted in failed connection efforts.

These aren’t all exclusively satellite-IoT considerations either; if your device application disregards the characteristics for which LPWA networks were designed, you’ll drain batteries faster, congest networks unnecessarily, and degrade the service quality. If you assume data constraints from the outset, it’ll benefit your application across all communication technologies.

Real World Example:

We have a customer measuring water levels in fracking sites in northern Canada, where temperatures drop to -32C. They needed two ‘heartbeat’ messages per day with status and location, plus an immediate alert if the level switch activated.

As the sites are unmanned and unpowered, the solution needed to be self-powered, extremely robust and reliable.

We took our RockBLOCK Sense and physically connected it to both a small solar panel array, and the sensor gateway (given how infrequently the locations were visited, Bluetooth LE as a wireless connection held too great a risk of communication failure).

The device can be remotely managed using Cloudloop Device Manager, Ground Control’s online platform to allow for OTA updates and troubleshooting.

Key Takeaway

The biggest challenge cellular IoT specialists face when implementing satellite IoT connectivity is learning to throttle back on data requirements. It’s too expensive and too power hungry to try to use satellites in the same way as you would a terrestrial network.

There are always ways we can solve this problem for customers, and we’ve discussed many of them in this post, but it wouldn’t hurt to consider data constraints from the earliest part of your planning. Even the cellular spectrum has limits, and scarcity drives innovation. Build this into your thinking and you’ll have far fewer challenges to contend with if you need to expand your network in the future.

Can we help you?

If you have a remote connectivity challenge, we can almost certainly help.

Call or email us at hello@groundcontrol.com, or complete the form, and one of our team will contact you within one working day.

We design and build our own satellite IoT hardware and IoT platform, and we’ll offer you expert, objective advice.

Coverage is a key consideration when choosing a satellite network for your application. At its most basic level, you need to ensure that the network you choose has orbiting satellites that cover the area from which you need to transmit data. This is widely available information – our Calculators and Maps page provides coverage maps for many of the main service providers.

However, being able to provide coverage on paper is not the same as being able to do so in practice. Because you also need to ensure that your terminal’s antenna can easily communicate with the satellite. In order to do so it needs to be able to ‘see’ the satellite clearly. Depending on the type of satellite you’re connecting to, this is often referred to as as a requirement for ‘line of sight’ or a ‘clear view of the sky’.

Geostationary satellites (e.g. Inmarsat) require a ‘clear line of sight’

Geostationary satellites are positioned 35,786 km above Earth and are travelling at the same speed as Earth’s rotation – hence why they appear stationary, and the reason for the name. If your satellite antenna is designed to communicate with a geostationary satellite, it must be able to ‘see’ it. Many devices will help you figure out how well aligned your antenna is with the satellite (called the ‘look angle’) with a series of LED indicators or sounds. Once you’ve appropriately located your antenna, as long as it doesn’t move, it will retain a very stable connection with the geostationary satellite.

Low Earth Orbit satellites (e.g. Iridium) require a 'clear view of the sky'

Iridium has 66 satellites orbiting Earth at 780 km up, and they’re travelling at 30,000 km per hour. It will take a single Iridium satellite about seven minutes to pass from horizon to horizon, and in most places / at most times, there are two or three passing overhead. This confers a great benefit on users as antennae do not need to be ‘pointed’; they are omni-directional, meaning that they can transmit data at virtually any angle and – as long as there are no obstacles – one of the passing satellites will ‘pick’ the data up.

However, if your device doesn’t have a clear view of the sky from horizon to horizon, there will be points in the satellite’s trajectory where it can’t receive a signal. For example, if you have a hydrology station collecting water quality data, in one direction it might face the dam wall; in another it might have a clear and unobstructed view of the horizon.

In this instance, the Iridium satellite is able to receive data when it’s sufficiently overhead so that the dam wall isn’t blocking the signal, and it will continue to do so until it drops out of sight. This means you’ll get close to real-time data for approximately five out of the seven minutes during which the satellite is passing overhead.

What can prevent a clear view of the sky?

Typical obstructions include tall buildings (urban landscapes), dense foliage (trees, forests), and natural terrain features like mountains or valleys. Each of these reduce your ‘view of the sky’ and the effectiveness of satellite connections.

What’s the impact of an impaired view of the sky?

There’s likely to be an impact on signal quality and consistency: obstructions can completely block data packets (e.g. Iridium’s Short Burst Data service) and can affect the quality and consistency of connections that require a stable connection (e.g. IP connections such as Iridium Certus).

Ultimately this can lead to reduced accuracy and reliability of satellite based tracking/communication equipment.

How can you tell if you truly have a clear view of the sky?

It may sound silly, but our engineers recommend this process as it gives a better understanding of ‘clear view of the sky’ from a satellite device’s perspective.

Position Your Arms: Stand outside in the location where you use the device. Extend your arms in front of you, with one hand placed directly on top of the other.
Create the ‘Crocodile Mouth’: Keeping your arms extended, separate your hands by raising one arm upwards, while keeping the other arm steady. The angle between your arms should be approximately 30 degrees. This creates a shape resembling a crocodile’s open mouth.
360-Degree Turn: Slowly turn your whole body in a full circle, 360 degrees, while keeping your arms in the same position.
Observe the Sky View: As you turn, look through the gap between your hands (the ‘crocodile mouth’). You need to check if there are any obstructions in this view. These obstructions could be anything that breaks the line of sight between your hands and the sky, like buildings, trees, or other tall structures.
Evaluate the View: If at any point during your 360-degree turn you see obstructions between your hands, it indicates that you don’t have a clear view of the sky. The aim is to have an unobstructed view of the sky throughout your entire turn, ensuring that the device can communicate effectively with the overhead satellites.

What to do if you don’t have a clear view of the sky

If your application can manage without 100% real-time data, then having a compromised view of the horizon may not be an impediment. You’ll get your data very frequently, assuming that there is at least some sky visible to the antenna!

If you don’t want to compromise, most engineers will try to elevate your antenna so that it clears the current obstructions. Mounting it on a pole is a very common option.

In extreme cases, something like LoRaWAN can be used to transmit the data from the bottom of a canyon, for example, up to a more open location where a satellite transceiver can do its job.

You could also explore a different satellite network: it’s possible that a geostationary satellite might be at just the right look angle for your antenna, and once these are locked in, they’re extremely stable.

Talk to the experts

We've implemented satellite IoT infrastructure for decades, and there's very rarely been an obstruction issue we couldn't overcome with a bit of knowledge and ingenuity.

We'd be happy to talk to you about your project and offer impartial advice on the best antenna and satellite service for your particular requirements. Call or email us, or complete the form.

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Sending data over satellite is more expensive than sending it over terrestrial networks. It’s become less expensive – the gap has shrunk, and continues to do so – but we won’t see complete parity of service and price soon – if ever.

So, when you’re capturing data from remote assets, the first consideration is how much data you need to send. We often come across companies used to using cellular, for example, and having very few constraints on their data transmissions. That mindset needs a little adjustment for satellite transmissions.

It’s a worthwhile exercise to dig into the art of the possible here: do you have some edge processing capabilities that would allow you to report by exception, for example? Time spent up front minimizing your data will pay back in far lower ongoing airtime fees.

This leads on to the next question: can you optimize your data sufficiently to use a messaging service rather than an IP-based service? This article seeks to explain why this is such an important question in the context of satellite IoT, and help you choose the best service for your application.

First things first: many people reading this will know how IP works. If that’s you, jump to the ‘What’s the Problem with IP’ section. If not, a basic understanding of IP is helpful to understand the pros and cons of this as a means of sending data over satellite.

The Basics of Internet Protocol (IP)

IP is the most common means by which packets of data are transferred from one machine to another. Machines are called ‘hosts’, and the IP network simply sends the data from the source host to the destination host. Both hosts are identified by an IP address which usually looks something like 192.158.1.38.

Data is divided into packets and sent over the network by the most efficient path, which could well see packets going over different routes. They’re reassembled at the destination host . However, IP is quite a basic, unacknowledged transfer mechanism; the source host isn’t notified if the transmission succeeds or fails.

So another layer in the tech stack is needed to make IP function reliably: it’s usually TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). TCP is built on top of IP to check that data is successfully delivered, and in the same condition in which it was sent. It’s so fundamental to the functioning of IP that you’ll often see the two layers combined as TCP/IP and used interchangeably with the individual terms.

What’s the Problem with TCP/IP as a Means of Communication Over Satellite?

That’s a bit of a provocative subheading because there isn’t a problem, per se. But there are some challenges that can be overcome in several ways – one of which is to not use an IP-based connection method at all (more on this later).

The main challenge is that TCP/IP is inefficient when it comes to transmitting very low volumes of data, and it’s relatively resource-hungry. In the example opposite, you can see how much data is passed back and forth in order to send just a single byte of useful data (thank you to Nick vs Networking’s blog post for this great illustration).

Not only are you paying for the extra packaging and overhead, it might also require more power to transmit than if you were simply transmitting the useful data. Not an issue if your asset / sensor is powered, but it could be if your asset is unmanned, and needs to run off a battery for several years in between maintenance visits.

If you want a more efficient means of passing data because you need to throttle back on cost, and/or your device needs to conserve power, you have four options.

Optimize your data transmissions
Explore UDP/IP as an alternative to TCP/IP
Consider using a more efficient protocol designed for IoT such as MQTT
Look at a message-based option instead

1. Optimize Your Data Transmissions

We briefly touched on this earlier; it’s popular because – unlike some other options – you don’t have to change the underlying network. Two of the best known satellite airtime options that work on a TCP/IP network are Inmarsat (now ViaSat)’s BGAN M2M, and Iridium’s Certus 100 service. If all of your other systems use IP, you can effectively plug-and-play to send your data over satellite using these airtime options.

Think carefully about how much of the data you’re routinely transmitting contains information you actually need. Our previous blog post identified five key ways to reduce your satellite IoT connectivity costs. In short, by efficiently managing data usage, adjusting settings based on application requirements, and leveraging edge computing capabilities, you can use TCP/IP more effectively, and reduce your overall satellite airtime costs.

2. Explore UDP/IP-based Applications

If your application can tolerate some missing data, UDP can be a much more efficient means of working with IP. Packets (or ‘datagrams’) are sent via a ‘best effort’ communication method, which doesn’t require that the destination host has ‘accepted’ the data transfer. It’s faster and less resource heavy, but less reliable – delivery is not guaranteed – and there are security challenges too.

Hologram.io has a great blog post outlining the differences between TCP and UDP in more detail. Applications built on UDP tend to favour limited networks with low bandwidth and low availability – CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) is probably the best known of these.

3. Use a TCP/IP-based Application Designed for IoT

Both HTTP and MQTT use TCP/IP; they layer over additional features specific to the applications that they serve. However, HTTP isn’t optimized for IoT; it’s designed for two machines to talk, not for networking many sensors, and is pretty noisy / talkative when used for the latter. If that’s your only option, circle back to point 1 and see what you can do to optimize your data for transmission.

MQTT, on the other hand, was written specifically for IoT; it uses a publish/subscribe pattern which allows for efficient and reliable data transfer. Individual sensors publish data to a broker, and multiple ‘clients’ can subscribe to receive that data from the broker.

MQTT delivers data with a very low overhead by using a binary format that minimizes message size. You can also choose varying levels of ‘QoS’ – Quality of Service – which allows you to speed up or slow down message delivery, and increase / decrease the certainty of the message being delivered. Basically, fast = less reliable delivery, and slow = very reliable delivery. All of this means your device is using TCP/IP very efficiently and therefore will consume less data.

Among the criticisms of MQTT are security concerns – it doesn’t include a defined security mechanism, relying instead on the underlying network’s security – and a lack of built-in error handling. It’s worth noting that a number of companies working with MQTT have built platforms to manage these specific concerns, including Ground Control’s own Satellite IoT Gateway.

4. Look at a Message-based Option Instead

However efficient your application layer – and MQTT is very efficient – IP, whether UDP or TCP enabled, is still relatively overhead-heavy. If you can avoid using IP altogether, you can further minimize the volume of data delivered, and in doing so, spend less money on airtime, while keeping your battery powered device running longer.

In the cellular industry, this is called (very logically) Non IP Data Delivery (NIDD), and it’s a message-based transmission protocol. With messaging, 100% of the data that is transmitted can contain useful application-related information, and the transmission lasts only as long as it takes to send that data. Compared to IP, it’s like the difference between a text message and a phone call; NIDD is the text message, and IP is the phone call – the latter delivers real time, two-way communication, but is more resource-hungry.

In the satellite industry, a similar principle has been operated very successfully for over 20 years – message-based transmissions that are sent either at predefined intervals, or when requested, or when there has been an ‘event’. Iridium’s Short Burst Data (SBD) and Iridium Messaging Transport (IMT), plus Inmarsat’s IsatData Pro (IDP) are all message-based.

It’s an extremely efficient way to use satellite airtime: send only what you need, when you need it, with no costly overhead. It does present a data compression (or compaction) challenge for developers: the message sizes are minute, with SBD sending just 320 bytes, and receiving 270 bytes. That can take some creativity to work with – but necessity is the mother of invention! Our SBD-based tracking devices convey date, time, position, altitude, course, speed, battery percentage, temperature, precision in just 17 bytes.

Iridium Messaging Transport – a Game-Changer?

Some of these size restrictions were lifted in late 2022 when Iridium launched IMT. This is still a message-based platform but it allows messages to be sent of up to 100 KB, a vast increase on the previously available options. This allows you to send compressed images and multiple sensors’ data, and so opens the door to message-based transmissions for far more use cases than was previously possible.

Formatting Your Data for a Message-Based Transmission

If you use SBD, you can transmit your data as either ASCII or Binary messages in packets of up to 340 bytes, while receiving packets of up to 270 bytes. Depending on your service provider, you can then deliver messages to your application using a wide variety of protocols. Ground Control’s customers gain access to Cloudloop Data, which supports our HTTP Webhook API, email or integration with public cloud services like AWS SQS. You can find all of the Cloudloop Data documentation here.

If you decide to use IMT, great news: our engineering team have created a Satellite IoT Gateway which allows you to transmit your data using MQTT, but taking advantage of the cost- and power-benefits of the message-based transmission.

This system uses the RockREMOTE family of satellite IoT hardware. As per the diagram, you can communicate with RockREMOTE using MQTT, and it will transmit the data via IMT, managing the connection, message queuing, retries etc. automatically. It’s then reconstituted on to a secure, cloud-based MQTT broker which you can connect to your MQTT client or library, allowing your cloud application to consume the messages.

Why Would You Use Anything Else?

The main drawback is that, simply, IP-based communication is more common, so if your remote systems – sensors, gateways etc. – utilize IP, you’ll need to do some engineering work to switch to messaging.

Here at Ground Control, we’re invested in making sure our customers use the most cost-effective means of reliably and securely communicating with their remote assets. If your application or protocol expects an interactive, two-way IP connection (i.e. SSH, SFTP, TCP/IP sockets, web browsing etc.), then something like Iridium Certus 100 or Inmarsat BGAN M2M is probably the best fit.

If, however, you’re using MQTT, you can explore IMT; and if you have very small data requirements, you can unlock the most affordable solutions available. We’re here to help, so get in touch if you have any questions about this post, or you’d like some impartial advice.

Can We Help?

If you have a remote data transfer challenge, we would love to help you solve it. Our expertise, in-house hardware, Cloudloop platform and long-standing relationships with satellite network operators and hardware providers gives us the means to tackle challenges with creativity.

We’re not invested in selling you a specific product or connections, just the best solution for your needs. If you prefer to speak to someone directly, call us on +44 (0) 1452 751940 (Europe, Asia, Africa) or +1.805.783.4600 (North and South America).

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) drones are transforming logistics. The diverse applications range from delivering medicines to people in remote locations, to monitoring offshore wind platforms to identify and communicate possible hazards.

The cost-saving advantages are clear; a drone is less expensive to operate than a manned vehicle, and it’s also safer. Historically, drones have been used in areas that are harder to reach by people. They’re harder to reach because they’re remote: out at sea, on an island, in the mountains or in the desert. This often comes with a side order of weather, radiation and elevation hazards. While a UAV might be negatively affected by these conditions, it’s obviously preferable to put a machine at risk rather than a human!

But drone operation is not without its challenges, chief among them piloting beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Without this capability, drones have to remain within sight of the operator, which limits the viability of most commercial applications. To operate safely BVLOS in non-segregated airspace (i.e. airspace shared by manned aircraft), drones must be able to detect and avoid other airspace users, reliably communicate with all stakeholders (the remote pilot, plus other aircraft and ground control), comply with relevant air traffic control regulations, and adapt to changing situations.

Certification is currently managed on a case-by-case basis, and can take years. Satellite network operator Iridium recently published a white paper calling for a Minimum Equipment List (MEL) that, if adhered to, would allow drone operators to fast-track certification and operate safely in designated airspace. In the meantime, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is working on a regulatory framework that will enable specific category BVLOS operations in non-segregated airspace by 2026.

Until these initiatives bear fruit, scaled drone operations will continue to take place within well-defined and controlled operating areas, reducing the risk of conflict with other aircraft. For example, the newly implemented European Standard Scenario (STS) allows drone operators to skip the EASA’s risk assessment and authorization process by restricting altitude, flight paths and operational hours. Both pilots and the drones must meet certain standards, which include failsafes for communication: you must be able to reestablish a data link in the event that it fails, or else be able to remotely terminate the flight (source).

Communication with drones operating BVLOS

Where available, drone operators will use airborne VHF / UHF / L-Band radio, or some form of cellular connectivity to communicate with their drones. But these radio frequencies may suffer from congestion, security challenges and regulatory limits. As many drones are used in unpopulated areas, cellular may simply not be an option. So connection redundancy is an increasingly important element of BVLOS operations.

This is where LEO – Low Earth Orbit – satellite communication comes into play. Satellites launched into Low Earth Orbit are closer to the Earth than their geostationary counterparts. This has important implications for drone operators, because the latency – the time it takes a message to be sent to the drone from the operator, and received (or vice versa) – is reduced from c. two seconds to less than one second.

As this diagram shows, very few satellites are needed to cover huge swathes of Earth if the satellite is far enough away from it, but satellites in Low Earth Orbit cover only a small portion of the Earth’s surface. Multiple LEO satellites are needed for global coverage, and the first – and to date only – globally accessible satellite IoT network is Iridium. This is why Iridium is so often the choice for UAV manufacturers looking to add failover communication to their drones.

Iridium offers multiple airtime options for connecting to their satellites, from Certus 700 (700 Kbps, fast enough to support live video broadcasts) through to Short Burst Data (packet-based data which sends 270 / 340 bytes per message). Short Burst Data (SBD) is ideal as a failover connection; with SBD, operators can get position, altitude and speed, and can return basic commands such as ‘go to the nearest rally point’, ‘go home’ or ‘terminate flight’.

SBD is lightweight, low power consuming, and meets most SWaP requirements for UAVs. It offers a secure and reliable connection to the drone to make it less vulnerable to hacking, and safe to pilot within controlled operating areas.

Our team visiting Zipline in late 2023

Supported by satellite IoT connectivity, important work is already taking place. Our customer Zipline is using SBD as the failover communication method for its Zips: autonomous aircraft that are being used to deliver prescriptions, groceries, vaccines, livestock supplies and more.

Very recently, Zipline was cited in the peer-reviewed journal Vaccine, noting that its method of delivering vaccines aerially to more isolated parts of Ghana has improved clinical outcomes and prevented disease among children.

In fact, it’s estimated that Zipline delivery has saved an estimated 727 lives in the Western-North Region by enabling 15,000 children to access vaccines who would not previously have been able to.

Popular Youtuber Mark Rober filmed his experience at Zipline, and it’s well worth a watch to learn more about this incredible operation.

To deliver vital chemotherapy drugs to patients on the Isle of Wight, UK-based Skylift UAV built an autonomous eVTOL (electric, vertical take-off and landing) aircraft which can fly for 1.5 hours on a single charge, with a maximum speed of 100 Mph. In BVLOS configuration, it can travel up to 100 Km, depending on the payload.

The drones are autonomous, but monitored by Skylift’s safety pilots who can take control of the drone at any time. As the drone travels BVLOS, and across a body of water (the Solent), it’s essential that the pilots have two reliable means of communication with the drone at all times. The Skylift UAV team chose the RockBLOCK 9603 to deliver SBD connectivity in addition to aviation-grade L-Band radio to ensure that irrespective of the drone’s location, connectivity is guaranteed.

RockBLOCK allows them to send and receive data from the aircraft, and is part of the robust communications package with which all Skylift drones are equipped. It’s also the final line of defence for mission success.

Would you like to know more?

If you're building a drone and you're looking for a failover communication method, we can certainly help. If your requirements are more data-hungry than simple commands - perhaps you need to be able to transmit imagery, for example - speak to our team to find out what options are available to you.

We have over 20 years' experience in satellite connectivity, and specialise in IoT and tracking applications. We're standing by to ensure you get the service you need.

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1. Tracking Endangered Species

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2. Monitoring Glacial Retreat

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3. Combating Overfishing

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4. Preventing Deforestation

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5. Measuring Ocean Currents to Understand Global Climate Patterns

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In Summary

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The Differences Between Licensed and Unlicensed LPWAN

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How Unlicensed LPWAN Works with Satellite

LoRaWAN:

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When to use Individually Connected Devices

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Satellite LPWAN:

Coming Soon: NTN NB-IoT

NTN NB-IoT:

What is 3GPP?

What About Non-Terrestrial LTE-M?

What’s Best for Your Remote Application?

Can we help you with your remote application?

The Energy Impact and Growth of IoT Development

Why is Energy a Design Constraint in Satellite IoT?

Five Power Conservation Examples in Remote Satellite IoT

1. Minimize What Data You Send, and how Frequently You Send it

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2. Data Processing at the Edge

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3. Energy Harvesting – Solar Energy for Satellite IoT Sustainability

4. Power and Cabling Efficiencies with Power over Ethernet (PoE)

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5. Pulse Width Modulation in Remote Locations

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Further Reading

A Guide to Satellite IoT for Cellular IoT Specialists

IP vs Messaging for Satellite IoT Data Transmission

5 Steps To Reducing IoT Connectivity Costs

How Iridium Messaging Transport (IMT) opens up new IoT possibilities

Infographic: How to unlimit your IoT application with the RockREMOTE Rugged

Could your Business Achieve More with Better Connectivity?

From LEO to GEO: Exploring the Different Types of Satellite IoT

Introducing Iridium Messaging Transport (IMT)

Introducing Ground Control’s Satellite IoT Gateway

How RockBLOCKs Can Transform IoT Projects With Global Connectivity

How Satellite IoT Closes The Gap in Remote Wind Turbine Data Monitoring Challenges

5 Ways to Reduce Data Transmission Costs in the Oil Well Lifecycle

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What surprised us about the data

55%

Supported commercial drone applications

57%

Supported military drone applications

65%

Had concerns about drone hacking / interception

32%

Felt that drones were environmentally friendly

Which demographics are most likely to support military applications?

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Who is most likely to support commercial applications?

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What concerns do Americans have about drone usage?

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What benefits do Americans perceive can be derived from drone usage?

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What can the drone industry learn from these results?

How Can We Help?

The Problem of Missing Data

Solving the Communications Infrastructure Problem

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Counting the Cost of Satellite Connectivity

Further Reading

Conquering Infrastructure Obstacles in Sustainable Development Projects

Building Hot Shot Fire Prevention with the RockBLOCK