Localizador de animais: desenvolvimento do protótipo de um rastreador de animais de estimação utilizando GPS e LoRa

Abstract

When a pet escapes or disappears from its home, a number of community-affecting complications occurs, such as the spread of diseases, serial reproduction, accidents, in adition to promoting tutor’s distress. This paper a prototype pet tracker using LoRa communication technology. The development of the device has as main aim the analysis of the viability of the elaboration of a final product, seeking results such as minimum battery consumption and adequate size. The methodology used is exploratory, where were analyzed several bibliographical references focused on the subject in order to obtain adequate knowledge for prototype development. As position acquisition method, a GPS (Global Positioning System) module via serial communication was used. The Atmega328p microcontroller was used to interpret the coordinates information, transmit and receive this data via LoRa. After completion of the tracker-concentrator system, properly controlled via algorithm, battery consumption measurements were made and the minimum characteristics of the device were defined. As a result, were achieved a maximum range in different scenarios varying from 140𝑚 to 408𝑚 in the worst and best case, respectively. The average power consumption of the tracker were 145,7𝑚𝑊, using a waiting time of 10 minutes to save energy. With these results it was concluded that the GPS module consumption is the greater obstacle in such application, however it is viable to develop a pet tracker using GPS and LoRa technology.