Senior Level Engineers contributed to the IoT System for Mobility Devices

Unicsoft engineers helped to develop a data signatures system for high value assets allowing to track the e-bike data.

The Client

Our client, IoT Venture GmbH, forms part of the global holding, which has a workforce of 500 at fifteen locations.
IoT Venture creates data signatures for high value assets (tracking modules for dogs and e-bike systems) to gather proprietary data about the asset and the owner, profound trip analysis, app usage, service utilization (e.g. theft notification) etc.

The client’s services include the development of hardware and software (embedded systems), provision of the necessary data platform (cloud solution), and assistance in developing brand new digital business models.

The client’s first successful application was launched on the market in 2019. This was a complex embedded system for e-bikes, for the development of which they turned to Unicsoft.

Business Challenges

We received a request from a client to support in developing a system for electric bicycles that is capable of collecting data from the built-in sensors of e-bikes and transmitting that data using the NB-IoT protocol to a secure B2B web platform.

Today, high-value moving assets are not tracked and not connected to the internet, they are unsigned from a data perspective.

The data collected from smart mobile devices can be used by insurance companies, cargo carriers, and medical companies to deepen understanding, improve decision making, track and trace goods, and offer goods and services at the right time and place.

Technical Challenges

To work on the development and maintenance of the solution, our client needed a skillful and reliable product development team. Though, client’s top priority is to staff people onsite, they have turned to Unicsoft, because we are able to find high quality talents they couldn't find.

The client wanted the solution to have additional features that could be used for anti-theft protection, emergency alarms, geolocation, and having a 360-degree view that details what’s going on with the e-bike: battery consumption, parts’ deterioration, diagnostics, and so on.

The whole idea was to have a complete solution with built-in algorithms and artificial intelligence, able to take care of everything for the e-bike rider: from preparing a report for the police to communicating with the insurer.

Solution

IoT Venture has partnered with Unicsoft, because they needed a strong, reliable and professional team to help them implement their product idea into reality.

01

We managed to staff far more senior and skilled developers for reasonable rates than our client did onsite.

02

We did our best to keep staffing quality high via pre-validation of diligence and soft skills and providing more detailed descriptions for client.

03

Our top priority was not to waste time and money with bad candidates and to test their communication skills and motivation beforehand.

The scope of work

In order to succeed in developing an efficient e-bike system, Unicsoft involved our best-in-class Embedded developers to complete the following tasks:

MVP firmware development for IoT devices (NB-IoT GPS assets tracker).

Adding OTA update capabilities to the non-serviceable embedded GPS IoT assets tracker with a wireless communication channel (NB IoT network).

Improving FW stability to allow a fleet consisting of tens of thousands of devices to work reliably without any service.

Implementing life-critical functionality (crash detection) and deploying in-field, low-cost wireless GPS assets trackers.

Implementing self-check functionality for both production test and run-time self-checks.

Adjusting FW to HW changes caused by a chip shortage crisis to maintain a stable and growing production velocity.

Our mobile development engineers worked on:

Mobile app development for expo

Output and calculation of statistics

User profile editing

Refactoring and improving the application

Technology and tools:

  • С++
  • С
  • NB-IoT
  • GNSS-Modul and Accelerometer
  • LTE
  • Internet of Things
  • Embedded development

The result

We have been working with IoT Venture for four years and, to this day, Unicsoft is providing continuous support and improving upon the app’s existing functionality as well as adding new and relevant features.

  • We developed a battery-powered embedded system with a GNSS-Module and Accelerometer which is used for orchestrating user data.
  • NB-IoT module captures data and transfers it to the admin platform which transforms a bike into a constituent part of the Internet of Things.
  • The main advantages of NB-IoT for the client are: cost-effectiveness due to reduced power consumption and less maintenance, as well as heightened security.