The Future of Package Tracking: The BLE Smart Label

Smart packaging refers to any packaging that goes beyond a box or cover to protect the goods inside and enables tracking of certain parameters crucial to the shipped items. Part of the ever-growing IoT, smart packaging leverages technology to improve the quality and historic data of the transit of goods and commerce at both consumer and commercial levels.  This article covers the development and scale-up of a smart packaging solution by Renesas. 

Making waves at CES 

When the Dialog Semiconductor team started thinking about what to demonstrate for CES in 2020, like the rest of the world, they did not know that would be the last larger exhibition most of us would attend in person for a while. Earlier that year, the team was introduced to a printed battery manufacturer headquartered in Berkeley, California. Their signature product is a credit card-sized, less than 1mm in height, flexible, disposable battery. Inspired by this, the team set a goal to create a small, thin, and low-cost Bluetooth^® Low Energy (LE) label and beacon-findable logger which can be disposed of through the regular household trash.

Two working prototypes were quickly built based on Bluetooth® LE SoC DA14531 which were exhibited at CES and received very positive feedback. These two labels, connected to a gateway that determined the RF signal strength to estimate the distance and identify the individual labels, were demonstrated. This first demonstrator did not contain any additional features such as sensors.

Promising customer feedback motivated a rethink of what a Bluetooth® LE connected label could be used for, which inspired a new generation label. A third-party manufacturing house was contracted to design a small flex-foil PCB with integrated Bluetooth® LE DA14531 SoC, an 8-Mbit Flash, and several sensors (e.g., humidity and temperature, ambient light, 3-axis accelerometer), while making it easily connectable to the aforementioned printed battery.

The Many Applications of the Smart Asset Tracking Label PoC

This proof of concept (PoC) is available today and can be used in various scenarios. Some of the most beneficial include:

• Data logging and reporting
  • e.g., for food, pharmaceutical, and other sensitive goods using an environmentally friendly, battery-powered, standard RF-radio-equipped label/tag
• Inventory control
  • e.g., scan thousands of items in a mid-sized warehouse or on a pallet using just a smartphone or tablet
• Tamper detection
  • e.g., record events of light exposure, tamper contacts, or acceleration

Renesas’ acquisition Dialog Semiconductor offered a unique opportunity to complement the Dialog Bluetooth® LE ultra-low power Wi-Fi and Flash memory solutions with Renesas’ sensors, additional radios (such as LTE CAT-M1), or additional ULP MCUs. The result expands solutions into the broad industrial and consumer markets. The PoC is comprised of a Renesas HS3001 humidity and temperature sensor, a DA14531 Bluetooth® LE, and an AT25XE081D 8-Mbit ultra-low leakage SPI Flash memory. An additional MC3635 3-axis accelerometer and a low-voltage ambient light sensor complement the system (as shown in Figure 1).Fig

Figure 1: An MC3635 3-axis accelerometer and a low-voltage ambient light sensor complement the system. Image credit: Renesas 

How the PoC Compares to Existing Technology

Existing data logging labels or tags commonly use RF-ID for communication, since the batteries are too small to power active radios. Other existing tags or labels contain a ubiquitous active radio, such as Bluetooth® LE , Wi-Fi, LoRa,  and use large batteries, built for repeated use over long periods of time, meaning logistics for reuse and recycling are required. In stark contrast, the Renesas Bluetooth® LE-equipped solution not only logs temperature and other environmental data, but also enables users access to the data in real-time so they can intervene before goods are damaged or lost.

Since the PoC uses Bluetooth® LE for wireless communication, all that is required to take advantage of these options is a standard mobile phone or tablet. No special transceivers or infrastructure are required. Furthermore, the printed battery manufactured by Imprint Energy can be disposed of through regular household waste since it does not contain any environmentally harmful components.

Agile Design Methods Resulted in an Industry-tested PoC

Interestingly, through specifying and designing the new demonstrator Renesas, in cooperation with the battery supplier and the third-party manufacturing house, already engaged with potential customers long before the first samples were physically available. Multiple software implementations, as well as label hardware, have been provided. Examples include a variety of customer requirements ranging from simple beacon functions and data logging to using smart inventory hub functions in combination with a generic Linux-OS-based hub.

In addition, Renesas has engaged with multiple customers for diverse applications, such as electronic shelf labels with e-ink display and multiple years of battery life from simple button cells. Bluetooth® LE-based "findables" with primary and rechargeable batteries and many more solutions are also being investigated.

This PoC is an elevated development platform for customer-specific projects. However, depending on the customer requirements, other batteries, sensors, memory requirements, etc. may influence the actual product development. Customers who do not have the required engineering resources available may want to take advantage of the work already conducted with the third-party design and manufacturing house partners.

About the sponsor: Renesas

At Renesas we continuously strive to drive innovation with a comprehensive portfolio of microcontrollers, analog and power devices. Our mission is to develop a safer, healthier, greener, and smarter world by providing intelligence to our four focus growth segments: Automotive, Industrial, Infrastructure, and IoT that are all vital to our daily lives, meaning our products and solutions are embedded everywhere.