Challenges
- High-value goods, containers and in-transit assets often leave the warehouse or port "locked, but with no record of who opened it, when, or where it is now." Traditional padlocks and mechanical seals cannot audit the operator, time and location in real time, and tampering, cut seals or in-transit substitution are usually discovered only after the fact.
- Coastal and port environments add salt spray and humidity that corrode ordinary locks.
Solution Design
- New Forward deploys the G-316N industrial GPS smart padlock, integrating positioning, identity-based authorisation and tamper detection into the HHDlink cloud platform.
- Each lock carries dual-mode GPS + BeiDou/GLONASS positioning (accuracy ≤10 m) and 4G LTE, so administrators can monitor location, lock status, battery and signal 24/7 from the web platform or mobile app, with geo-fencing, historical track playback and event alarms.
- Five unlocking methods are supported on site — 13.56 MHz RFID IC card, platform, mobile app, Bluetooth and a mechanical key backup — with role- and time-based authorisation and master-card sealing.
Core Benefits
- Shackle-cut and body-tamper events are reported to the platform in real time with an alarm omission rate below 0.01%, a low-power mode under low battery, and up to 8,000 records buffered offline and uploaded on reconnection.
- The Nordic nRF5340 secure controller (Arm TrustZone + CryptoCell CC312) provides secure boot, a hardware root of trust and signed firmware updates, addressing IEC 62443 OT-security requirements, while the IP67, salt-spray-tested body with a 304 stainless-steel shackle and ATEX certification suits coastal, port and hazardous environments.
Deployment & Operations
- HHDlink is a fully web-based platform with a companion app, offering centralised access control, role and time-based permissions and a full audit trail (lock/unlock, timestamp, user/card ID), ≥30-day retention, CSV export and API integration; it is cloud-first but can be deployed on-premises, scaling to ≥300 users and ≥300 locks from pilot to full roll-out.