The A to Z of wireless

T is for Telemetry

Telemetry and telematics refers to the automatic monitoring, measuring and transmission of data.

Vehicle telemetry is one of the best known wireless applications of the tech, where it's used for fleet management - tracking how far a vehicle has travelled, at what speed or how much fuel it's consumed for example.

Vehicle telemetry can also be used for freight storage logistics and has already been deployed in Formula 1, where real-time data on race vehicles' performance is gathered to calculate potential lap times.

Wildlife tracking and monitoring can also take advantage of telemetry, where scientists can wirelessly monitor endangered species or study migration patterns. Weather stations that gather information on the local climate in remote regions are another application of wireless or radio telematics.

Telemetry often utilises M2M - or machine-to-machine - communications, transmitting small amounts of data between devices without human interaction.

Such data can be used to track items or monitor environments: for example, in a refrigerated lorry, sensors in the storage compartment could detect when the temperature is too high and communicate this to a device that could cool the compartment to the correct level.

With M2M making use of cellular networks for data transfer, mobile operators are becoming increasingly interested in the market's potential to create new revenue streams. Last year analyst house Berg Insight predicted there will be almost 60 million connected machines by 2013 and urged mobile operators to "position themselves for the future" and get involved.

Kestrel wearing telemetry (Photo credit: Jason Riedy via Flickr.com under the following Creative Commons licence)