How It Works
Making The Internet of Things a Reality
How We Utilize IoT Technologies
We utilize the latest in IoT technologies to capture, process and display physical asset movements while providing visibility into asset location, status, condition, environment and history. Whether you need to reduce time-consuming inventories, track objects, control shrinkage, locate misplaced assets, monitor environments or observe conditions, Visi-Trac provides the tools needed to better manage your inventory and assets.
All IoT Solutions Have Three Elements
1
Sensors
Sensors and nodes are deployed to capture various data, including location, proximity, temperature, motion, and acceleration.
2
Connectivity
Data is transmitted wirelessly using RFID, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Cellular and Satellite data is transmitted over third-party networks.
3
Software
Software collects, analyzes and reports data, and can be integrated with additional corporate systems to enhance data analysis and reporting.
How Our Software Works
Visi-Trac collects and analyzes data and issues alerts and reports in real-time, enabling business managers to have greater visibility, control and security over their physical assets and business operations.
Data Capture
Uses RFID, RTLS, Bluetooth, Sensors, Mesh nodes and GPS to collect data and report current location and status.
Data Processing
Utilizes data filters, business rules, event processing and workflow logic to give context to data inputs.
Data Display
Turns raw data into actionable information with powerful analytics to create tailored dashboards, charts and reports.
Visi-Trac Platform
A single, enterprise asset management system that utilizes various IoT technologies to track the location, status and condition of assets and environments. The five core modules are:
Edge Server
Gathers data from a variety of IoT devices (RFID, Sensors, GPS) and performs complex filtering and event processing to make sure the data set is clean, accurate and relevant.
Exports data to Visi-Trac and third party systems via standard API's (REST, MQTT, JMS, WS).
Asset Manager
Processes data based on business rules and workflow logic. Stores data securely, locally or in the cloud. Asset data is entered and updated within this application.
Asset Manager keeps a record of an item’s last seen location, status, condition, movements, warranty and service history.
Mobile App
Collects inventory data and compares results against expected values and displays items as Found, Missing, Misplaced or New.
Visi-Trac Mobile has a local search function and synchronizes data with Visi-Trac Server, EAM, financial and procurement systems.
Analytics
Generates dashboards and reports to visualize asset data. Shows asset movement history, trends and anomalies. Displays asset locations on a map or floor plan.
Reports on exceptions, movement violations, and generates alerts and actionable business insights.
Device Manager
Monitors the health of edge sensors and issues alerts when devices go down or offline.
Displays sensors by type, status, and on a map to identify where issues are occurring. Allows remediation actions; has kill switch to mitigate edge network security risk.
Data Capture and Connectivity
Visi-Trac supports a wide range of data capture technologies, enabling the right technologies to be selected for an application, all integrated in one common platform.
Barcodes
Barcodes come in different symbologies including traditional 1D and 2D formats like QR codes. Visi-Trac can read any barcode format for transactions such as commissioning assets or updating asset locations.
Passive RFID
RFID uses radio waves to wirelessly identify and gather data from tagged assets. Visi-Trac uses both HF and UHF RFID to uniquely identify and track assets during inventories and perform automated transactions.
Active RFID
Active tags are battery powered and emit a beacon that transmits farther than passive RFID. Visi-Trac uses various active RFID technologies to triangulate asset location and or read asset ID's from a long distance.
Near Field Communications
NFC is a short-range, wireless technology that enables communications between electronic devices within 4 cm. Visi-Trac can get signals from smartphones communicating with devices containing an NFC tag.
Bluetooth Low Energy
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a similar to active RFID because a battery is required, however transmit distances are much less. BLE is often used in low power sensor applications. Visi-Trac uses BLE to collect sensor data across multiple industries.
Wireless Mesh
A wireless (802.15.4) network in which nodes connect directly and dynamically to other nodes to route sensor and location data. Visi-Trac is deployed with mesh networks when highly scaleable outdoor tracking is required.
IoT Sensors
Sensors collect data from the surrounding environment, such as location, proximity, temperature, humidity, motion, vibration, acceleration and flow. Visi-Trac gathers sensor information and camera input and triggers alerts when defined thresholds are exceeded.
Satellite
Tracking via satellite uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) and ground receivers to pinpoint geographic locations. Visi-Trac uses GPS to track vehicles and equipment in remote regions and trigger geofence-based alerts.