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Please consider the following:

I am looking to build a device that will be placed in a vehicle as it drives through heavy wooded areas, potentially far away from any mobile reception towers.

The hope is for this device to be able to get its GPS location in near real time, and upload said information to either, another device, or best case: the internet, but the key point would for this to be as uninterrupted as possible.

The device must not require any modification to the vehicle (attaching antenna to the roof etc) other than being powered/charged from a 12V cigarette lighter.

Is my best option here to build an app and use a high quality mobile phone, or would it be to build a custom device with some kind of satellite internet, and high quality GPS module.

If the custom device I would consider using a Raspberry Pi as the controller for it, can anyone suggest equipment that could be used in this?

Many thanks,

Edit

I would also love to see any examples of similar projects for some brainfood.

Aphire
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1 Answers1

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For near-real time tracking of vehicles while out of cellular service range, Spot makes the Spot Trace, a vehicle tracker that uses satellite communication. It transmits only when the vehicle has moved or is in motion, and only as often as you configure it for, minimizing data traffic over the satellite link. It operates on alkaline batteries (for concealed placement) or vehicle power.

If you just need a product and don't feel the need to build one, this is a pretty inexpensive way to meet your stated needs.

If you still want to customize it further and/or build something yourself, Globalstar offers a variety of satellite and satellite+GPS communications modules.

John Deters
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