ChapTeR 1 ■ The InTeRneT Of ThIngs and daTaIn this figure, you will see how GPS systems can track location as well as satellite communication to
transmit additional data such as diagnostics, payload states, and more. All of these ultimately traverse the
Internet, and the data becomes accessible by the business analysts.
You may think fleet management systems are only for large shipping companies, but with the
proliferation of GPS modules and even the microcontroller market, anyone can create a fleet management
system. That is, they don’t cost millions of dollars to develop. For example, if you owned a bicycle delivery
company, you could easily incorporate GPS modules with either cellular or wireless connectivity on each
delivery person to track their location, average travel time, and more. More specifically, you can build a
GPS tracking solution with an Arduino and a small supporting set of electronics.^7 In fact, I propose such a
solution could be used to minimize delivery times by allowing packages to be handed off from one delivery
person to another rather than having them return to the depot each time they complete a set of deliveries.
Figure 1-5. Fleet management example^6
(^6) CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).
(^7) See http://makezine.com/projects/make-37/gps-cat-tracker-2/ for information about how to build a small
GPS tracker for pets. The technology would be the same or similar.