In the practice of smart agriculture, MBM01 Bluetooth beacon using the LoRaWAN protocol was experimented in a 10,000-mu wheat field in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. With a directional gain antenna, it can have a straight-line transmission distance of 1.2 kilometers, 15 times the 80-meter range of standard Bluetooth 5.0. The 2023 report of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences tells us that this remote guiding light has decreased precision irrigation hardware deployment density from 6 per hectare to 0.8, decreasing hardware costs by 67%, and increasing the rate of soil moisture observation data completeness from 78% to 99.2%. As the transmission power is increased from +4dBm to +20dBm, equipment power consumption increases from 0.15W to 1.2W, and battery life decreases from 8 years to 3 years. Energy consumption optimization has to be done in accordance with the ISO/IEC 18000-6C standard.
Measured data from the logistics industry demonstrate the influence of environmental interference on the transmission range. In the metal shelf environment of SF Express ‘cargo hub at Shenzhen Airport, MBM01’s initial attenuation rate in the 2.4GHz frequency band reached as much as 82%, and the transmission distance was reduced to 150 meters. Six relay nodes installed in a Mesh network, however, extended the effective coverage radius to 580 meters. Deloitte’s supply chain analysis report indicates that the above solution has enhanced the efficiency of tracking 470 million yuan worth of medical device containers by 41% and reduced goods loss rate to 0.03%. It must be noted that under extreme temperature conditions ranging from -20°C to 55°C, the fluctuation of the RSSI location accuracy of the beacon will rise from ±2.3 meters to ±8.7 meters, and a temperature compensation algorithm needs to be implemented in order to provide assurance.
City-scale infrastructure monitoring has been an engineering breakthrough for bluetooth beacon. The MBM01 device with explosion-proofing in Hangzhou Metro Line 19’s tunnels is capable of providing efficient communication over 230 meters irrespective of the thickness of the concrete structure up to 2.4 meters. Its protection class is IP68, which can withstand the use in a humid condition of 98% for five years continuously. The “Technical Specifications for Smart Pipe Galleries” released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in 2024 shows that the response time of the gas leakage detection system using such beacons has been decreased from 12 minutes of the traditional solution to 47 seconds, and the positioning error is kept within 3 meters. But spectrum analysis shows that when deployment density turns higher than 28 beacon per kilometer, the channel conflict probability in the 2.402-2.480GHz frequency band will increase from 5% to 34%, and it is needed to implement TDMA time slot allocation technology for optimization.
The special needs of the energy sector encouraged the development in transmission technology. The real test carried out by State Grid at the Qinghai Province photovoltaic power station indicates that MBM01 can run uninterruptedly for 18 months at 4,800 meters altitude and 6.5kW/m² ultraviolet intensity, along with the solar power supply module, with the maximum transmission distance of 1.8 kilometers. IEEE 802.15.4 standard test data shows that the device still possesses a receiving sensitivity of -97 DBM in an industrial noise environment of 50dB, extending the completeness rate of wind turbine blade vibration monitoring data from 76% to 99.5%. But as the FCC certification report specifies, if the transmission power is above +10dBm, the shielding layer of the device should be increased in thickness by 3.2mm to meet electromagnetic radiation safety standards, which will raise the price of one machine by 19%.