Sequans Communications of Paris, France has released its Monarch 2 LTE-M/NB-IoT platform with low-power GNSS positioning capability, for IoT customers to obtain accurate location without requiring an external positioning chipset.
The new lcapability leverages Nestwave technology and is ideal for a wide variety of intermittent tracking use cases, including car, bike, scooter, and other personal asset trackers; logistics and fleet trackers; pet, farm animal, and people trackers; emergency assistance beacons; and various types of smart city trackers. Monarch 2 GM02SP module offers multi-functional mode selection with power consumption in the range of a few hundred microwatt-hours per location fix. Power consumption can be adjusted for each fix depending on the use case or for a new triggered event such as emergency asset recovery.
The Monarch 2 GM02SP module is a pin-to-pin compatible variant of the company’s Monarch 2 GM02S module, with an added GNSS antenna RF input, enabling existing Monarch 2 GM02S customers to take advantage of the added low-power GNSS capability.
“Having low-power GNSS on Monarch 2 makes many types of IoT tracker use cases more affordable because there is no need for additional positioning chips or modules,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO.
The solution supports intermittent or recurrent IoT tracking use cases and allows users to choose from various levels of assistance and performance, depending on use case requirements. Sequans’ GNSS solution can be updated along with Monarch 2 firmware over the air (FOTA) upgrades, giving users instant access to feature upgrades as they become available.
“The IoT tracking market is forecasted to reach several hundred million in annual shipments over the next few years, spanning several logistics, agricultural, smart city, and personal tracking applications,” said Andrew Zignani, research director at ABI Research. “However, this market has more stringent power consumption, size, cost, and scalability requirements than traditional GNSS deployments. The arrival of low-power GNSS integrated in solutions such as Sequans’ Monarch 2 platform can help keep the bill of materials as low as possible, enable less complex and swifter hardware designs, deliver smaller form factors, and provide greater flexibility, allowing the market to reach its true potential in the years to come.”
The Monarch 2 GM02SP LTE-M/NB-IoT module features 23 dBm transmit power, a very high level of integration, ultra-low power consumption (1 microamp at rock bottom), a certified EAL5+ secure enclave for integrated SIM (ieUICC), compliant with GSMA standards, an integrated MCU, and Sequans’ Single-SK RF front end, enabling deployment on any LTE band worldwide.
