When it comes to vehicle tracking and recovery devices, size does count. A big unit sticks out, making it easy for car thieves to find and disable. A small well-hidden device takes longer to find and so gives recovery teams more time to locate a stolen or hijacked vehicle.
Using Wavecom's WISMO and a unique software feature of the company's MUSE Platform, called Open AT, South African company Car Track has succeeded in developing a vehicle-recovery system that it says is smaller, more affordable and more effective than competing radio frequency and GPS-based systems.
Car Track says it found WISMO and Open AT ideal for use as its vehicle recovery device because they use existing GSM networks and are a faster and less costly alternative to RF-based systems. Also the smaller devices are easier to hide than either RF or GPS-based devices and the complexity, cost and time of development with reduced components is dramatically cut. Reliability is also increased since the WISMO's large processing capacity has room for extra safeguards.
Set up in 2001 by some of the most highly experienced vehicle tracking and fleet management experts in the industry, Johannesburg-based Car Track wanted to develop a vehicle-recovery device that would overcome the disadvantages of the current RF and GPS-based systems. These systems suffer from bulky size that makes them easy targets for vehicle thieves to spot and disable. Also, RF-based networks are expensive and time consuming to set up, while metal bridges and other structures can interfere with GPS positioning.
As a new company, Car Track needed to develop its units quickly and economically and get it to market fast. Using WISMO Quik allowed it to use existing GSM networks instead of building its own proprietary network-an expensive and time-consuming task, while Open AT allowed the company to tap into the unused processing power of the WISMO, reducing the final number of components on the circuit board and simplifying the development process.
"When you move that complexity into the WISMO, it reduces cost and time to develop," says developer Nic van der Walt. "Open AT is a very simple feature that makes the whole product cycle easier."
Adds operations director Johan de Wet, "We probably would have used WISMO even without Open AT, as it is a proven, affordable product. But with Open AT we were able to develop our product even more easily and get it to market on budget and on schedule."
Car Track's future looks bright. The company started operations in Mozambique, and recently set up operations in South Africa and Tanzania. Car Track systems will be available in Angola, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, with the enormous Brazilian market next in its sights.
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