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7
Advanced Features
In this paragraph are described some advanced features supported by the device, which might be
requirement for different use cases.
7.1
Geofencing
Geofencing (an electronic safety fence) provides the opportunity to set a geographic square
around a defined location. Here you can set different scenarios like “leaving the area” or “entering
the area” and transmit an event to the control centre. With the Picotrack Endurance you can
monitor 50 geofence areas which can also be combined to create larger areas and build up a
complex protection zone. Every geofence area is given an Area ID, a centre (defined by its
longitude and latitude) and a height and width (from the centre not completely across) in meters.
Figure 11: Geofencing
7.2
Roaming alternative configuration
The device is able to detect a GSM roaming status and swap automatically to an alternative setup
for roaming (this alternative setup has to be previously configured). This allows optimizing the data
traffic and reducing the communication costs.
7.3
Device Watchdogs
The Picotrack has different integrated watchdogs. They automatically check the functions of the
device and generate resets as soon as they recognize any malfunction. Malfunction could occur
due to internal problems of the device, problems related to the GSM connection, problems with
the GPS reception and many more.
This watchdog concept ensures that the Picotrack can automatically return to stable operation if
necessary. Control of the watchdogs by the user is not necessary.
If the watchdog has to restart the device it may happen that some of the position messages and
respectively events are not logged and as a result they are not transmitted to the tracking server.
7.4
Device based wireless positioning (GSM Tracking)
The device can be configured in order to get a localization obtained by the GSM module, in case
that the GPS has some difficulties on providing a valid fix. Of course this position will be less
accurate and take a bit longer than the standard way by GPS module, therefore this functionality
has to be considered as emergency backup for the GPS.
