discussion / Drones  / 23 August 2017

Drone Tracker

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Hi all,

I'm looking for a stand alone tracker for drone as part of risk mitigation for a missing drone (due to flyaway or crash). The idea is this tracker will help the pilot / drone operator to find the location of crash site so that it can be easily rescued and recovered. 

Although there are a lot of commercial GPS tracker available in the market, but they are mostly GSM cellular based tracker and in our work perspective, such tracker may not working in the remote area and covered by forest. So, should any of you have a better idea or have deployed a tracker on your drone, feel free to share your experience.

Thanks,

Mazidi

 




Hi Mazidi,

As I told you, there are GSM trackers (not 3G):

https://uavcoach.com/find-lost-drone-3-awesome-gps-drone-trackers/

If there is not network at all you should build your own network :)

Maybe the easiest way to build your own long-range network is to create a Lora network.

I think this is the one of the bests devices, small and cheap, with expected range of 40km:

https://pycom.io/product/lopy/

There are more:

https://shop.sodaq.com/en/lora/

http://www.anarduino.com/?cid=24

You should wire a GPS (rx and tx wires to the radio-device) and write a python software to send the coordinates to the other node of the network.

Ah, I see somebody already have a product:

http://www.zane.hu/en/webshop/ztrack-mini-2/

(This is only the node on the drone, you need the receiver on the ground station too)

Hope this helps,

Lot.

Hi Mazidi,

 

A couple of options;

- Marco Polo.    http://eurekaproducts.com/rc-model-tracking-and-recovery/    

I know of people who have relocated their machine using this device.   

- Conventional VHF for wildlife tracking.  old but solid technology.

Also have a look at commercial / open source devices used for model rockets.

regards

MJ

 

EDIT: I see that you have already identified Marco Polo.