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Finshed Project: Battle Force Tracker — Parallax Forums

Finshed Project: Battle Force Tracker

Sniper KingSniper King Posts: 221
edited 2008-10-18 03:29 in Propeller 1
Well... Finally... We finshed the Battle Force Tracker (BFT).· I want to thank everybody who helped me with the software questions I had during this development cycle.·

The image attached is the BFT in the prototype case from Digikey.· The real boxes are not done yet but are really cool.· The second image is a SolidWorks image of the finished box in production right now.

The display you see is the uOLED-128-GMD and the processor is, of course, the propeller.

This is a long range, long duration tracking system with tested ranges exceeding 84 miles LOS.· This device talks to another propeller enabled receiver and puts it on the internet to a MySQL server for logging.· The Client application talks to the MySQL serve and integrates with ArcGIS to display in real time and 3D where each tracking device is.

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·- Ouch, thats not suppose to be hot!··


Michael King
Application Engineer
R&D



Post Edited (Sniper King) : 10/17/2008 8:40:42 PM GMT
BFT.jpg
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bft total.jpg
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Comments

  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2008-10-17 20:52
    so... if I wanted to track my car... rather than know retrospectively that it left town without permission...

    are u taking orders from regular folks?
  • Sniper KingSniper King Posts: 221
    edited 2008-10-17 21:02
    Yup, It will track your car. We do have a commercial version of this that leaves out a couple of bells and whistles the public wouldn't really use that is for public consumption. Go to www.DTG-LLC.com for more details.

    We are actually creating a vehicle mount version as well.· The would be more like a LOJAK

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    ·- Ouch, thats not suppose to be hot!··


    Michael King
    Application Engineer
    R&D

    ·
  • KeithEKeithE Posts: 957
    edited 2008-10-17 21:25
    rjo said...
    so... if I wanted to track my car... rather than know retrospectively that it left town without permission...

    If you do a little searching you'll find that some cellphones can do this quite easily. A couple of years ago we had some volunteers making their hw6500 GPS position available at all times. (Hint to CFOs - Not a good idea if you go golfing during business hours.) You can potentially do this with network or wifi as well as GPS, but I'm not sure how easy the non-GPS stuff is for the average user. Search skyhook for some information on hybrid systems.

    Post Edited (KeithE) : 10/17/2008 9:31:21 PM GMT
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2008-10-17 21:52
    absolutely brilliant
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2008-10-17 21:54
    keith... I looked for it before... I'll take another look... the only thing I found was a solution from sparkfun... i think... but it was fairly pricey and wasn't complete... as I recall with my aging brain[noparse]:)[/noparse]

    thanks
  • KeithEKeithE Posts: 957
    edited 2008-10-17 22:27
    Here's one example - www.accutracking.com/

    One term that you can search for is lbs or "locations based services" (e.g. you may run across www.loopt.com/ with such a search and then look at the list of supported phones.)

    To relate this to the propeller you can search for recent posts, and think about sending a GPS position through an SMS message with the propeller.
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2008-10-17 22:30
    My x actually found that... she didn't like the subscription pricing... she was content to have me GPS track her car... until my little board decided to go nuts[noparse]:)[/noparse]
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2008-10-17 22:35
    and then we just decided not to let the teeny drive for a while... that's about over so now we need to do something that doesn't require my x to remember to turn my board on and off to reset it after it goes nuts.

    sniper's solution is better... and it is prop based... that's good enough for me.

    I couldn't find pricing and availability... so I think we have a real time feed on this and the site hasn't caught up yet.
  • KeithEKeithE Posts: 957
    edited 2008-10-17 22:47
    Back in 2002 Xircom had a GSM module called the Redhawk in a relatively small enclosure, and left the option for 3rd parties to install an internal add-on board. For marketing demos we made a little GPS board with our GPS chip on it. A coworker explained it to his teenage daughter, and then put it inside the spare tire in the trunk of her car. She didn't really "get" it. After she returned later that day he showed her where she had been. Then she got it, and she didn't like it one bit...
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2008-10-17 22:52
    we haven't told the daughter yet... it is too much fun catching her... "someone we know told us that they saw you in the car on _____ street.... what were you doing there?[noparse]:)[/noparse]
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2008-10-18 02:42
    What sort of wireless link is it? I'd buy something like that if it could take in serial strings on one side and output the same at the other end.
  • Sniper KingSniper King Posts: 221
    edited 2008-10-18 03:29
    I just ordered one of the GSM modules from Sparkfun.· It can do both SMS (Short messages) and GPRS which is like calling another computer with an old modem only it can get pretty fast.· I am adding this to a new product line we are working on for tracking but i can't say what we're tracking but i think you will hear about it soon! (I hope)·

    Again, it will feature the Propeller chip as its main brain.

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    ·- Ouch, thats not suppose to be hot!··


    Michael King
    Application Engineer
    R&D

    ·
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