Shock, Motion and Tilt

The following questions are frequently asked questions about the Tive trackers abilities to measure motion, acceleration, shock, and tilt detection. If you have any additional questions please feel free to contact Tive Client Support.

Q: Does the tracker detect motion?
The devices use accelerometers to detect horizontal and vertical motion to enter flight mode and meet the FAA and EASA guidelines for airworthiness. The device also records any "significant motion" and reports this information to the Tive data cloud for each measurement interval. The Tive platform uses this information to help with location accuracy in the case the device is stationary. The tracker also has the ability to use its motion detector to immediately report its position or to collect the sensor/location at different rates when in motion versus stationary. These optional modes can be activated by our client support team based on the use case.

Q: How are shock events configured?

By default, only acceleration & motion data are measured at the time of the measurement interval. It is possible to activate shock sensing on your account by contacting our Tive Client Support.
When shock sensing is activated, your trackers will monitor shock continuously and record shock events that are above a pre-defined threshold. Note that the maximum shock threshold for each axis is 8G for the Solo 5G devices (TT-7000/TT-7100).  Each time a shock event is detected, the tracker will turn ON its transmitted and report the shock event on the Tive platform with the location and time of the event. Activating shock sensing has an impact on the tracker battery life and our team can recommend the best configuration based on your requirements.

Q: How sensitive are the shock alerts?

The TT-7000 can measure shocks and impacts of a magnitude up to 12G force with a resolution of 4 mg. The TT-4000 supports shock up to 200G. Sensitivity (in Gs) is not based on time or duration, but rather on the threshold set up on each axis. The accelerometer is always running and measuring x/y/z acceleration. The device reads and processes all acceleration data for each axis and finds the "peak to peak" acceleration value over many samples (we also call this value the delta acceleration). If the delta acceleration on any axis is greater than the shock event threshold (let's say 4.5g), then the device will create a "shock event" and report the delta value for each axis immediately (together with the current location and time of the event). In other words, the x/y/z acceleration reported during a shock event will always be positive since they are "delta" values (or peak-to-peak values).

The constant gravity should not impact the shock trigger or the value reported. For example, if an acceleration value of 4.59 G is reported on the axis which normally has -1 G (gravity). You can consider 4.59 G as the maximum peak-peak value on this axis. It is possible that the instant acceleration waveform had +3.5G and -1.09 G in this case but the total delta was 4.59G and that is will be reported for this axis.  

Q: What are examples of G-force measurements that the Tracker captures? Is it possible to differentiate types of shocks: fall, flip, crash?

The Acceleration (G) sensor view on the Tive dashboard shows the average acceleration measured by the tracker over time. When the tracker is stationary it always reads an average of ~1 G force (earth gravity). Each data point on the graph shows how the acceleration is distributed over the X, Y, Z axis and you can refer to the picture below for how the axis is represented on the device. If the tracker experiences motion, the average acceleration will change (typically if you pick up the tracker you will see an average acceleration below 1 G). If the shock sensing is activated and the tracker experiences a shock over the threshold, a red line will show the shock value. 

The Flagship tracker also includes a separate XYZ Acceleration (G) graph sensor where you can see the 3 acceleration components over time.

The tracker can experience g forces across 3 axes when dropped off a desk, by itself, on multiple axes.  The tracker dropped from the same height would experience significantly fewer Gs when attached to the top of a cardboard box that deforms (because the deformation absorbs the shock).  You need to test in multiple scenarios to find the shock level that is interesting to be alerted about.

The figure below shows the axis reference for TT-7000/TT-7100 and the TT-4000 trackers as reported on the Tive Dashboard.

Q: What is the shock value I see on your platform and what does it mean?

When a shock event occurs (above a specified threshold), the shock value presented on the Tive platform represents the magnitude of the shock which is calculated using the acceleration values of each component as follows. The shock magnitude is always a positive value.

For each shock event, we also display the delta acceleration component for each axis (X/Y/Z). These X/Y/Z values represent the "peak to peak" acceleration (or delta acceleration) during the shock event. These values are always positives. 

Q: Why I can't see shock events for the Solo 5G (TT-7000)?

Please contact our Tive Client Support team to activate shock sensing capabilities on your account.

Q: Can the Tive trackers measure Tilt angle?
A: Yes, however, this feature has not been officially released to clients. If you are interested in Tilt measurement please contact our sales team at sales@tive.com.