Challenge:

The customer – develops and manufactures unique products to solve their client’s problems. A significant segment of their clients manage large vehicle fleets and needed the ability to efficiently and cost-effectively monitor and maintain fleet vehicles. These clients also required a small, easy-to-mount wireless device enabling them to monitor the fleet’s location, status, and driving behavior in order to streamline their operations. Extending the life of a fleet vehicle while reducing operating costs can translate into thousands of dollars saved per year.

Establishing a wireless connection presented a greater challenge. While most companies in the industry were utilizing a cellular solution that required a monthly fee for airtime, the company wanted to provide comparable features and reliability without the burden of ongoing service charges to their clients.

Could Lantronix provide a wireless networking solution that eliminates monthly recurring fees, and lowers operating and maintenance costs for monitoring fleet vehicles?

Key Requirements:

	Ease of implementation and minimizing downtime was critical – solution must have a small form factor to easily integrate with the company’s design
	Cost-effective – needs wireless monitoring versus costly cellular or other technologies for network deployment and expansion to keep costs low
	Ability to provide remote access to efficiently monitor and maintain fleet vehicles

The Solution: Lantronix WiPort Embedded Wireless Device Server

The company found 802.11 technology to be a much more cost-effective and proven solution than cellular technology. They selected the Lantronix WiPort, an 802.11 b/g wireless embedded device server module. The WiPort was small enough to be easily integrated with their design and offered the greatest feature set, including a web interface that simplified integration with the rest of its solution. Lantronix also demonstrated excellent technical and applications support, which enabled easy integration and a faster time-to-market.

By integrating WiPort into their solution, the company now enabled fleet managers to accurately monitor location, vehicle status, and driving behavior such as aggressive driving or exceeding authorized miles traveled – both of which can be signs the driver is wasting fuel or participating in unauthorized activity. This new solution also facilitated maintenance scheduling by alerting fleet managers when preventative maintenance is due, extending vehicle life.

Lantronix WiPort Application – Wireless Fleet Vehicle Monitoring and Management

Results:

	Cost-effective – costly cellular service charges are avoided by using Wi-Fi communication
	Quick time to market and ease of integration into their product design allowing for a competitive advantage
	Remote access using compact embedded 802.11 device to efficiently monitor and maintain fleet vehicles
	Enterprise level security options – IEEE 802.11i-PSK or WPA (PSK, TKIP) encryption and supports 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standards (AES) assures optimal security for communications

About the Lantronix WiPort – Embedded Wireless Device Server

Enable products to be wirelessly accessed and controlled over a network or the internet – The WiPort is a compact, integrated hardware and software module, enabling you to build wireless networking into virtually any electronic device with serial or Ethernet capability.

The matchbook-sized WiPort takes the complexity out of RF design and embedded Ethernet networking and WiPort enables engineers to focus on their core competency of designing products. It minimizes engineering risk, reduces cost, and shortens development time. Just apply power and UART output, and the product is wireless and network-ready!

Lantronix WiPort Key Benefits:

	802.11 b/g wireless networking for virtually any electronic device
	Wired Ethernet-to-wireless bridging
	Bulletproof wireless security with IEEE 802.11i-PSK, WPA-PSK, TKIP
	Secure end-to-end communication with Advanced Encryption Standards (AES)
	FCC Class B, UL and EN EMC and safety-compliant

Learn More »

To learn more about Lantronix’s embedded wireless IoT module solutions, click here.