Application behavior and functionality

This section describes the general functioning of the Asset Tracker v2 application.

Data types

Data from multiple sensor sources are collected to construct information about the location, environment, and the health of the nRF9160-based device. The data types that are collected by the application are listed in the following table:

Data type

Description

Identifiers

String identifier for NOD list

Location

GNSS coordinates

APP_DATA_GNSS

gnss

Environmental

Temperature, humidity

APP_DATA_ENVIRONMENTAL

NA

Movement

Acceleration

APP_DATA_MOVEMENT

NA

Modem

LTE link data, device data

APP_DATA_MODEM_DYNAMIC, APP_DATA_MODEM_STATIC

NA

Battery

Voltage

APP_DATA_BATTERY

NA

Neighbor cells

Neighbor cell measurements

APP_DATA_NEIGHBOR_CELLS

ncell

Additionally, the following data types are supported that provide some asynchronous data:

Data type

Description

Button

ID of pressed Button

Impact

Magnitude of impact in gravitational constant (G)

Real-time configurations

You can alter the behavior of the application at run time by updating the application’s real-time configurations through the cloud service. The real-time configurations supported by the application are listed in the following table:

Real-time Configurations

Description

Default values

Device mode

Either in active or passive mode.

Active

Active

Cloud updates occur at regular intervals.

Active wait time

Number of seconds between each cloud update in active mode.

120 seconds

Passive

Cloud updates occur upon movement.

Movement resolution

Number of seconds between each cloud update in passive mode, given that the device is moving.

120 seconds

Movement timeout

Number of seconds between each cloud update in passive mode, regardless of movement.

3600 seconds

GNSS timeout

Timeout for acquiring a GNSS fix during data sampling.

30 seconds

Accelerometer activity threshold

Accelerometer activity threshold in m/s². Minimal absolute value for accelerometer readings to be considered valid movement.

10 m/s²

Accelerometer inactivity threshold

Accelerometer inactivity threshold in m/s². Maximal absolute value for accelerometer readings to be considered stillness.

5 m/s²

Accelerometer inactivity timeout

Accelerometer inactivity timeout in seconds. Minimum time for lack of movement to be considered stillness.

1 second

No Data List (NOD)

A list of strings that references data types, which will not be sampled by the application. Used to disable sampling from sensor sources. For instance, when GNSS should be disabled in favor of location based on neighbor cell measurements, the string identifier GNSS must be added to this list. The supported string identifiers for each data type can be found in the data types table.

No entries (Request all)

You can alter the default values of the real-time configurations at compile time by setting the options listed in Default device configuration options. However, note that these are only the default values. If a different value set has been set through the cloud service, it takes precedence. The application also stores its configuration values to non-volatile memory.

The application receives new configurations in one of the following three ways:

  • Upon every established connection to the cloud service.

  • When the device sends an update to cloud.

  • From non-volatile flash memory after boot.

The following flow charts show the operation of the application in the active and passive modes. The charts show the relationship between data sampling, sending of data, and the real-time configurations. All configurations that are not essential to this relationship are not included.

Active mode flow chart

Active mode flow chart

In the active mode, the application samples and sends data at regular intervals that are set by the Active wait timeout configuration.

Passive mode flow chart

Passive mode flow chart

In the passive mode, the application samples and sends data upon two occurrences:

  • When the timer controlled by the Movement resolution configuration expires and movement is detected.

  • When the timer controlled by the Movement timeout configuration expires. This timer acts as failsafe if no movement is detected for extended periods of time. Essentially, it makes sure that the application always sends data at some rate, regardless of movement.

User interface

The application supports basic UI elements to visualize its operating state and to notify the cloud using button presses. This functionality is implemented in the UI module and the supported LED patterns are documented in the UI module LED indication section.

A-GPS and P-GPS

The application supports processing of incoming A-GPS and P-GPS data to reduce the GNSS Time-To-First-Fix (TTFF). Requesting and processing of A-GPS data is a default feature of the application. See nRF Cloud A-GPS and P-GPS for further details. To enable support for P-GPS, add the parameter -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=overlay-pgps.conf to your build command.

Note

For more information on the various trade-offs of using A-GPS compared to using P-GPS, see the nRF Cloud Location Services documentation.