Is anyone out there up for a development challenge involving "smart" GPS and accelerometer collars with extended lifetimes (arorund a year), possibly involving solar panel recharging ?
27 February 2019 6:53pm
Hi Peter,
You could use the open source Arribada GPS and accelerometer reference design as the base tag and add solar to the enclosure to trickle charge a Li-ion battery. The same reference design is currently having a LoRa radio added via the Open Collar initiative, so sharing the design to include solar would be of benefit there too.
It was primarily designed for sea turtles - https://twitter.com/arcpatricio/status/1041644023407149056
Tag size here - https://twitter.com/Al2kA/status/996125000531922945
Kind regards,
Alasdair
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Alasdair Davies
Arribada Initiative
1 April 2019 7:37pm
Hi Peter,
That's great, do keep in touch. FYI - the Rev 3 Arribada Horizon reference design will be inherited in the next OpenCollar tag and will benefit from the nRF52840 (Rev 2 was the STM32) meaning a deep sleep current of ~20μA, which means you'll in a good position to achieve your power requirements. First boards will be built and tested in a few weeks time.
Thermopiles - it's all about the vaccum sealed optics. Heinmann Sensors are in the process of testing the latest optics on horses / cattle at various distances to confirm performance. I'm writing an update so will share it once done with a little more insight.
All the best,
Alasdair
17 April 2019 12:40pm
Hi,
I wonder if anyone has looked into motion charging? Something like a cell phone vibrator with a large eccentric mass on the shaft could put out useable energy when the animal is moving, which is when it is most needed.
-harold
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Rob Appleby
Wild Spy
17 April 2019 2:51pm
Hi Harold,
I had a brief crack at using a 'shaker torch' (i.e. magnet and coil) and it seems plausible at least. I even wrote to Seiko about whether they'd give me a kinetic mechanism from one of their watches, but, whilst they were postive at first, I couldn't coax them out of one...Watching animals like dingoes trot along with collars on, swaying a little back and forth, really makes think it could work...Thoughts?
Cheers,
Rob
Alasdair Davies
Arribada Initiative