- Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:30 pm
#44030
Hi,
I am doing a school project so I am kind of new to electronic design so please excuse my ignorance on terms used.
I am basically looking to build a extremely small, long range GPS tracker. My goal is to use something like a Sirf III chip and send the NMEA data to a Bluetooth enabled phone. The problem is that I would like to have more distance than the 100m class 1 transceivers. I would actually like to go about 250m.
The obvious solution for a long range GPS tracking device is to use something like a GE863 module. But do to space requirements on my tracking device, this is not a viable approach for me.
As I would like this to be extremely small and long range, I was thinking of using something like the RF-24G with a Sirf III chip for the transmitter. I would then have another device, on the bluetooth cell phone equipped person, which could then take the data from the RF-24G and somehow convert it to bluetooth data and use a class 2 bluetooth device to send it to the bluetooth enabled phone. I also only need communication from GPS tracker to BT enabled cell phone, not the other way around too.
I am basically wondering if this design seems possible. Or, does anyone else have any suggestions? My restriction is that the PCB area must be less than 1000mm^2. The battery would be seperate from this board space. I also am willing to design and build a custom board for this application.
Also, if this design is possible, could someone please point me in the right direction for interfacing of these modules on the transmitter. Basically I mean, do I need to somehow interface the NMEA data or Sirf binary data from the Sirf III chip to the RF-24G by using a microcontroller or something? Similarily, how would the interfacing be done between the data received by my receiving RF-24G to the bluetooth transmitter (which transmits to the bluetooth phone). I would guess this data would still be in NMEA format, so I would somehow need to change from NMEA to bluetooth.
I know this was a little long winded, but I would appreciate any help anyone could give me!!
I am doing a school project so I am kind of new to electronic design so please excuse my ignorance on terms used.
I am basically looking to build a extremely small, long range GPS tracker. My goal is to use something like a Sirf III chip and send the NMEA data to a Bluetooth enabled phone. The problem is that I would like to have more distance than the 100m class 1 transceivers. I would actually like to go about 250m.
The obvious solution for a long range GPS tracking device is to use something like a GE863 module. But do to space requirements on my tracking device, this is not a viable approach for me.
As I would like this to be extremely small and long range, I was thinking of using something like the RF-24G with a Sirf III chip for the transmitter. I would then have another device, on the bluetooth cell phone equipped person, which could then take the data from the RF-24G and somehow convert it to bluetooth data and use a class 2 bluetooth device to send it to the bluetooth enabled phone. I also only need communication from GPS tracker to BT enabled cell phone, not the other way around too.
I am basically wondering if this design seems possible. Or, does anyone else have any suggestions? My restriction is that the PCB area must be less than 1000mm^2. The battery would be seperate from this board space. I also am willing to design and build a custom board for this application.
Also, if this design is possible, could someone please point me in the right direction for interfacing of these modules on the transmitter. Basically I mean, do I need to somehow interface the NMEA data or Sirf binary data from the Sirf III chip to the RF-24G by using a microcontroller or something? Similarily, how would the interfacing be done between the data received by my receiving RF-24G to the bluetooth transmitter (which transmits to the bluetooth phone). I would guess this data would still be in NMEA format, so I would somehow need to change from NMEA to bluetooth.
I know this was a little long winded, but I would appreciate any help anyone could give me!!