IoT in Space!

With demanding use cases from industries like many farmers, resource companies, environmental agencies, governments, defense agencies and enterprises with remote operations, they have the need for device communication that does not fit the “standard.” This is because they often need small amounts of data from tens of thousands of sensors spread across the world. It’s not cost useful to have a connection point at each location or hotspot. Something more significant is needed, something like IoT Satellites! That’s right, IoT Satellites, there’s an organization planning to put an IoT network into space to solve for these very demanding use cases!

Satellites are the obvious choice for remote connectivity. They provide global coverage indeed. So why don’t we see more IoT devices connected via satellite? At the end of the day, it comes down to cost and battery life.

Like all IoT applications, remote IoT requires small, low cost, long battery life transmitters. This is easily achieved when communicating with a tower a few kilometers away, but much more difficult when transmitting to satellites hundreds of kilometers above the earth. Also, remote IoT requires low ongoing data charges and low infrastructure overheads – and this is where satellite IoT becomes challenging.

New technologies are making it cheaper than ever to get your stuff into space! Just take a look at SpaceX, they are making spaceflight affordable for medium to large organization, it’s no longer reserved for government agencies. But you still need to spread the cost of these cheap satellites across vast numbers of IoT connections to make them viable. Current satellite communication technologies are not designed to communicate with a large number of devices; they usually only correspond one to one not one to many. Existing satellite technology is very good at dealing with smaller numbers of large, highly coordinated, power-hungry transmissions. This is great if you need large amounts of data like voice or images, but it doesn’t work if you have millions of direct IoT connections.

Myriota, your IoT Space Company!

Myriota uses small, low-cost transmitters to send small packets of data directly to a constellation of low earth orbit nano-satellites providing affordable IoT connectivity without the need for ground-based infrastructure. Myriota’s patented communications system exploits the advancements in silicon chip and nano-satellite technology, to enable low-cost direct-to-orbit IoT connectivity on a massive scale.

Myriota will be launching its commercial direct-to-orbit IoT connectivity solution in 2018.

Myriota just secured a huge Series A ($15m) of investment; I suspect we will see some substantial improvements this and next year from them.

 

Don’t need Satellites?

While we cant launch a satellite for your IoT project, we can, however, help you plan, design and build it! We have solutions for both high-security On-Premise IoT and Cloud connected solutions to help you get the maximum use of your IoT data! Talk with us!