LoRaWan - is it possible to track the movements of athletes on a budget?

Question

Iron

I have been eyeing the LoRaWan technology for a long time to solve the problem of sports trekking (in particular, for orienteering), but the information is very fragmented and contradictory. I would like to know how difficult it is to implement the scheme described below. Links to examples of iron, suitable articles on the topic, and in general any materials for reflection are welcome.

Given:
On a relief forest range, say, 5 * 5 kilometers in size, control points are placed, athletes run along it and visit these points. The terrain can be complicated by rocks, buildings, etc.

Task:
Record the athlete's visit to the checkpoint. A visit is considered if the athlete was at a distance of 1-5 meters from the point. Give the athlete feedback (light and sound signal that he has run, and you can look for the next point). Transmit the identifier of the athlete and the visited point to the base station. In the ideal case - to transmit the current position of the athlete (GPS tracking).

Wishes (in descending order of priority):
1. Reliable reception, signal loss is unacceptable.
2. The price of a device worn by an athlete should not exceed 4,000 rubles, ideally no more than 1,000 rubles. (up to 500 rubles will generally be an absolute success). The price of checkpoint equipment should not exceed 5,000 rubles. (test point must be weatherproof).
3. If possible, not too expensive base station. Some kind of outdoor from The Things Network worth ~ 45 tr. already stressful. In principle, the station can be placed in a warm place (in a car, for example), and only the antenna is outside.
4. Easy to deploy and program. Ideally, just include everything and collect data in CSV (for example) in order to process it later. A little less - the ability to write a handler in any high-level language (python, C#, etc).
5. The ability to organize control points in a mesh network, in case one of them is beyond the limits of reliable reception, or the ability to easily increase the polygon by installing additional relay nodes.

Thank you!

Answer 1

I would build the following system:

1. The receiving antenna of the base station or a repeater in the form of a baofeng with a battery is installed either at a dominant height, from where there is a direct line of sight to most of the test site, or rises on a tethered hydrogen balloon. It is not difficult to obtain hydrogen from aluminum and water with alkali (to remove the oxide film), for this you can adapt an old fire extinguisher as a reactor, it is not afraid of heating from an exothermic reaction and pressure. As an alkali, "Mole" works cheaply and effectively (loose is better). Here's a great vid about it.
   
2. For a five-kilometer polygon, taking into account the antenna raised on the ball and more or less line of sight, you can use the unlicensed 433 MHz band, or a two-meter one, which will better bypass trees and small terrain.
   
3. Athletes can be given devices with digital transceivers ( like these ), which will continuously transmit on their channel the last track points received by the GPS receiver. You can even set a buzzer to signal check-points.
   
4. On checkpoints, you can put the same transceiver with light-sound-alarm.
   The power supply and power of checkpoints can be provided higher, including through a cheap Chinese radio station ( such as this ). It is controlled through a standard connector, to which you can attach an arduino with a local near-field transceiver, RFID scanner, alarm relay.
   

Due to the multiple transmission of coordinate chains, redundancy is obtained, and the overlap of transmissions is not critical. It is important that the transmission intervals from checkpoints are coprime or randomized.
Standard baofengs as transceiver stations make system elements cheaper due to their mass character. You yourself cannot make good stations so cheaply, but you can have a couple of these in reserve.
If you make a compact collar capable of broadcasting once every 5 minutes a chain of half-hour coordinates of a track recorded with a thirty-second interval for several days, then I would cut one for a dog. But you need a compact one. It is not humane to hang heavy on a chihuahua.
If you really run out of money on the budget, then you can really use Chinese modules for 433 MHz and the LoRa protocol, but from portable devices you need to transfer the queue of the last track coordinates in a circle.
Stations can be made based on RFID far field, but it will be more expensive.
MESH networking is also an interesting idea. In this case, the checkpoints and the base station will be plus or minus the same, but a computer is connected to the base station and logs all transmissions on the network.

Answer 2

Good afternoon, we have solved this problem on the GoodWAN/OpenUNB protocol. That's exactly how you describe - cheap tags for athletes, cheap battery-powered repeaters for control points and 1 BS per specified area. Contact .