Amazon IoT Core Device Location - Amazon IoT Core
Measurement types and solversHow Amazon IoT Core Device Location worksHow to use Amazon IoT Core Device Location
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Amazon IoT Core Device Location

Before using the Amazon IoT Core Device Location feature, review the Terms and Conditions for this feature. Note that Amazon may transmit your geolocation search request parameters, such as the location data used to run searches, and other information to your chosen third party data provider, which may be outside of the Amazon Web Services Region that you are currently using. The third party provider and the solver to be used is chosen based on the input payload received. For more information, see Amazon Service Terms.

Use Amazon IoT Core Device Location to test the location of your IoT devices using third-party solvers. Solvers are algorithms provided by third-party vendors that resolve measurement data and estimate the location of your device. By identifying the location of your devices, you can track and debug them in the field to troubleshoot any issues.

The measurement data collected from various sources is resolved, and the geolocation information is reported as a GeoJSON payload. The GeoJSON format is a format that's used to encode geographic data structures. The payload contains the latitude and longitude coordinates of your device location, which are based on the World Geodetic System coordinate system (WGS84).

Topics

Measurement types and solvers

Amazon IoT Core Device Location partners with third-party vendors to resolve the measurement data and to provide an estimated device location. The following table shows the measurement types and the third-party location solvers, and information about supported devices. For information about LoRaWAN devices and configuring device location for them, see Configuring position of LoRaWAN resources.

Note

General IoT devices and Sidewalk devices can use the device location MQTT topics to obtain the location information. For Wi-Fi, Cellular, and IP address measurement types, if the devices publish the measurement data to the reserved topics in the defined GeoJSON format, Amazon IoT Core Device Location can resolve the location of the device. For GNSS measurement type, the device must have the LR11xx chip to scan the measurement data for obtaining the resolved location information using the GNSS solver. For information about obtaining location information for LoRaWAN devices, see Configuring position for LoRaWAN resources in the Amazon IoT Wireless documentation.

Measurement types and solvers
Measurement type Third-party solvers Supported devices
Wi-Fi access points Wi-Fi based solver General IoT devices, LoRaWAN, and Sidewalk devices
Cellular radio towers: GSM, LTE, CDMA, SCDMA, WCMDA, and TD-SCDMA data Cellular based solver General IoT devices, LoRaWAN, and Sidewalk devices
IP address IP reverse lookup solver General IoT devices and Sidewalk devices
GNSS scan data (NAV messages) GNSS solver General IoT devices, LoRaWAN, and devices devices

For more information about the location solvers and examples that show the device payload for the various measurement types, see Location solvers and device payload.

How Amazon IoT Core Device Location works

The following diagram shows how Amazon IoT Core Device Location collects measurement data and resolves the location information of your devices.

Image showing how Amazon IoT Core Device Location uses your raw measurement data and resolves the device location.

The following steps show how Amazon IoT Core Device Location works.

  1. Receive measurement data

    The raw measurement data related to your device location is first sent from the device. The measurement data is specified as a JSON payload.

  2. Process measurement data

    The measurement data is processed, and Amazon IoT Core Device Location chooses the measurement data to be used, which can be Wi-Fi, cellular, GNSS scan, or IP address information.

  3. Choose solver

    The third-party solver is chosen based on the measurement data. For example, if the measurement data contains Wi-Fi and IP address information, it chooses the Wi-Fi solver and the IP reverse lookup solver.

  4. Obtain resolved location

    An API request is sent to the solver providers requesting to resolve the location. Amazon IoT Core Device Location then gets the estimated geolocation information from the solvers.

  5. Choose resolved location

    The resolved location information and its accuracy is compared, and Amazon IoT Core Device Location chooses the geolocation results with the highest accuracy.

  6. Output location information

    The geolocation information is sent to you as a GeoJSON payload. The payload contains the WGS84 geo coordinates, the accuracy information, confidence levels, and the timestamp at which the resolved location was obtained.

How to use Amazon IoT Core Device Location

The following steps show how to use Amazon IoT Core Device Location.

  1. Provide measurement data

    Specify the raw measurement data related to the location of your device as a JSON payload. To retrieve the payload measurement data, go to your device logs, or use CloudWatch Logs, and copy the payload data information. The JSON payload must contain one or more types of data measurement. For examples that show the payload format for various solvers, see Location solvers and device payload.

  2. Resolve location information

    Using the Device Location page in the Amazon IoT console or the GetPositionEstimate API operation, pass the payload measurement data and resolve the device location. Amazon IoT Core Device Location then chooses the solver with the highest accuracy and reports the device location. For more information, see Resolving location of IoT devices.

  3. Copy location information

    Verify the geolocation information that was resolved by Amazon IoT Core Device Location and reported as a GeoJSON payload. You can copy the payload for use with your applications and other Amazon Web Services. For example, you can send your geographical location data to Amazon Location Service using the Location Amazon IoT rule action.

The following topics show how to use Amazon IoT Core Device Location and examples of device location payload.