Renesas Smart Agriculture Solutions
As agriculture becomes increasingly digital, farms are evolving into connected environments where equipment, livestock, sensors, and automated systems generate data that improves operational efficiency and productivity.
Within these environments, accurate positioning and asset tracking play an important role. The ability to locate animals, machinery, and tools in real time enables farmers to optimise workflows and improve resource utilisation.
Renesas addresses these requirements through a range of wireless positioning technologies designed to support scalable real-time location systems across agricultural environments.
Through Avnet Silica, developers can access Renesas positioning technologies and system expertise to accelerate the development of smart agriculture solutions.
Wireless positioning technologies for smart agriculture
Smart agriculture deployments often require different positioning technologies depending on operating environment and system requirements.
Outdoor applications such as autonomous tractors or equipment guidance typically rely on satellite-based positioning systems. However, many agricultural environments — including barns, greenhouses, storage facilities, and processing areas — require accurate indoor positioning technologies.
Renesas supports multiple wireless localisation approaches, allowing developers to select the most appropriate solution based on range, power consumption, and system architecture requirements.
Within this portfolio, Bluetooth® Low Energy–based localisation plays a central role, enabling scalable asset tracking systems using low-power tags and distributed locator infrastructure.
Bluetooth Low Energy positioning solutions
Renesas provides two complementary Bluetooth® Low Energy positioning technologies designed for asset tracking and localisation applications.
WiRa™ Gen2 phase-based ranging enables accurate point-to-point distance measurement between devices. This technique uses phase information from Bluetooth signals to determine the distance between nodes with high precision.
Renesas also offers ATLAS (Asset Tracking and Locationing at Scale), a Bluetooth Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) real-time location system designed for scalable asset tracking deployments.
ATLAS uses locator nodes equipped with multiple antennas to measure the direction of incoming Bluetooth signals from tags. By combining measurements from multiple locators, the system can determine the position of tracked devices across the deployment while maintaining low power consumption on tag devices.
These solutions are enabled by Renesas Bluetooth System-on-Chip devices including the DA1469x, DA14594, and DA1453x families, which support tag designs ranging from ultra-low-power disposable tags to rechargeable high-performance tracking devices.
Applications in smart agriculture
Real-time location systems support a range of agricultural applications where asset visibility and operational efficiency are important.
In livestock facilities, tracking tags attached to animals can provide insight into movement patterns and behaviour within barns or indoor farming environments, helping farmers monitor herd activity and detect potential health issues.
Precise localisation is also valuable in controlled-environment agriculture such as greenhouses and indoor farming facilities, where automated systems and robotics must operate reliably within confined spaces.
Location tracking can also improve the management of high-value tools and machinery, allowing operators to locate equipment quickly and improve utilisation across agricultural sites.
Renesas Webinar
Real-Time Asset Tracking and Locationing Solutions
This session explores how real-time asset tracking is transforming agricultural operations by improving efficiency, reducing equipment losses and enhancing livestock wellbeing.
Ecosystem collaboration with IoSEA
The Renesas vision is to create the best BLE locationing system on the market, supported by an ecosystem that will become the standard platform for location-aware systems.
Delivering this vision requires more than individual devices. Renesas is therefore building an ecosystem that combines Bluetooth connectivity devices, positioning technologies, software platforms, and development tools into a scalable architecture for real-time location systems.
A fundamental enabler of this strategy is Renesas’ collaboration with IoSEA, a specialist provider of real-time location system software platforms.
In this partnership, Renesas provides the connectivity hardware and localisation infrastructure, while IoSEA delivers the software components required to process and manage positioning data. IoSEA’s RTLS microservices platform enables localisation data to be integrated with customer dashboards, analytics platforms, and enterprise systems, while also providing tools that simplify the deployment and management of RTLS networks.
Together, the Renesas and IoSEA technologies form an end-to-end BLE positioning ecosystem designed to support scalable asset-tracking deployments across industrial and agricultural environments.
Accelerating development with reference designs
To help developers accelerate system design, Renesas provides a range of validated “Winning Combinations” — reference designs that combine multiple Renesas components into ready-to-deploy system architectures.
These designs demonstrate how Renesas connectivity, processing, and power-management devices can be integrated into complete localisation solutions.
Examples include the US262 Bluetooth LE Angle-of-Arrival locator platform, which enables infrastructure nodes within an RTLS deployment, and the WS048-2 dual-antenna tracking tag design, which provides a compact and energy-efficient device for tracking assets within the network.
By using these reference designs, developers can significantly reduce development time and accelerate the deployment of asset tracking solutions.
Delivering scalable localisation solutions
The Renesas localisation platform is designed to address several key challenges associated with real-time location systems.
Advanced signal processing techniques enable reliable operation in complex RF environments where reflections or signal interference might otherwise affect positioning accuracy.
Low-power Bluetooth SoCs enable long operating lifetimes for tracking tags, reducing maintenance requirements and minimising battery replacement costs.
The system architecture is also designed for scalability, allowing organisations to track large numbers of assets while maintaining reliable performance.
Enabling the connected agricultural ecosystem
As agriculture continues to adopt digital technologies, the ability to track assets, equipment, and animals in real time will become increasingly important.
Renesas localisation technologies provide the building blocks for scalable asset-tracking and monitoring systems that support more efficient and connected agricultural operations.
Working with Avnet Silica, developers can access Renesas positioning technologies alongside system design expertise to accelerate the development of smart agriculture platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| What is the difference between UWB and ATLAS? |
UWB (Ultra-Wideband) is a wireless technology used for high-precision ranging and positioning. ATLAS is Renesas’ Bluetooth® Low Energy–based real-time location system that enables scalable asset tracking using Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) positioning techniques. ATLAS combines Bluetooth tags, locator infrastructure, and software services to provide location intelligence across large deployments. |
| What is the difference between Channel Sounding and ATLAS? |
Channel Sounding is a capability within the Bluetooth Low Energy ecosystem that can be used to analyse how radio signals propagate between devices in order to estimate distance or improve positioning accuracy. ATLAS, the Renesas real-time location system, determines device location using Bluetooth Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) techniques within a network of locator nodes and tags. By measuring the direction of incoming signals from multiple locators, the system can calculate the precise position of tracked devices across the deployment. |
|
What is the maximum velocity that can be tracked? |
BLE-based positioning systems such as ATLAS are designed to track moving assets in real time, including equipment and vehicles operating within industrial and agricultural environments. The system can maintain accurate tracking for typical asset-movement speeds encountered in these applications. |
| Does ATLAS support 3D positioning? |
Yes. ATLAS supports three-dimensional positioning when the locator infrastructure is configured appropriately. This enables the system to determine the vertical as well as horizontal position of tracked assets, which can be useful in environments with multiple levels or complex indoor structures. |
| What tools are available for provisioning ATLAS? |
Renesas provides tools and supporting software to simplify the deployment and management of ATLAS networks. These tools support device configuration, system commissioning, and monitoring of RTLS deployments, helping developers integrate localisation capabilities into their applications. |
To explore Renesas solutions for your Smart Agriculture platform, contact Avnet Silica to discuss your project requirements.
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