extradio + Android for anti-poaching

[Chris Nicholas]

greetings -

I am working with a number of parks in Africa on tech to combat poaching. These folks need *all* the help they can get, trust me...
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0615-hance-garamba-elephant-poaching.html

A perennial problem has been communications for devices like:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/15/internet-enabled-trailguard-metal-detectors-snitch-on-poachers/
but based on really cheap modified toys:
http://hacktheplanet.com/?p=4808

or Android devices programmed to "listen" for the distinctive acoustic signature of gunshots, chainsaws, etc. to signal park rangers;
see: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherwhite/rainforest-connection-phones-turned-to-forest-guar

I was intrigued when I read about the integrated Arduino APRS module for high altitude balloons,
https://code.google.com/p/trackuino/ ; it got me thinking about using a transceiver and enhancing the code for digipeating, and voila!  here you folks are...  :-)

What I'm thinking is to use an Arduino digipeater module with a companion Android device, that talks via USB serial.  Android would have a layer to build SUPER-simplistic meshes appropriate to a park scenario -  i.e. detect and incorporate other nodes as they come online and broadcast their existence along with their GPS coordinates, use those coordinates to calculate a PATH back to HQ, send out keep-alive packets, etc, recalc PATHs if a node was determined to be dead, etc.  On top of this would be an application layer for basic reliable message transmission (msg id + ack and retry). In all of this, park HQ is the "brains" , i.e. it can ask a node to take a picture and send it back, download a new acoustic signature to listen for, and manage all potentially bandwidth-intensive operations, initially by just serializing tasks.

And of course, all this would be encrypted based on a shared key, that could be replaced from park HQ if a device were compromised and reverse engineered.

I'm hoping this can be a LOT simpler than the OLSR and BATMAN stacks.

If we could get something workable, we can get a LOT of traction through http://smartconservationtools.org, african-parks.org, etc.

definitely interested in people's thoughts....

now, time to get a prototype board, learn Arduino, and bolt up my VHF handset!

Chris Nicholas
KK6LRS
Alameda, CA

[Chris Nicholas]

reading more on client apps built on APRS; this is very impressive, for sure!
http://wetnet.net/~we7u/aprs_capabilities.html

hmmm...hmm...what to put into Ardruino, and what to put in Android? And what "bite-sized" chunks to take on in logical progression?

I'd really like to do a layered approach so the vast Android community that is interested in conservation can easily contribute to the sensor pieces ... (recognizing gunshots, gluing together infrared, metal detectors, and cameras, etc), and offload as much as reasonable to Arduino.

Battery life is of course paramount.

Chris

[Rob Riggs]

Hi Chris,

If you are interested, I just put up a short post this week on how to make an Arduino-based TNC on a breadboard.

http://www.mobilinkd.com/2014/09/11/arduino-kiss-tnc/

My company sells an AVR-based TNC designed to connect to Android devices via Bluetooth.  With small changes to the extdigi code (to use different IO of pins), it should be able to run on our TNC hardware.  Our hardware is battery-powered and energy efficient.

Another option is to enhance the APRSdroid software to do digipeating, and have the digipeating logic in the Android device.  One of the limitations of doing digipeating in an Atmega328 is that the chip has very little RAM in which to store heard packets, so packet de-dupe in busy environments is a challenge.  There are no such limitations in most Android devices.

As with extdigi, all of our software is open source and available on github.

https://github.com/mobilinkd

Kind Regards,

Rob wx9o

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[Rob Riggs]

Chris,

The author of APRSdroid has recently added the capability for other software and services to send data via APRS using a simple API.

https://github.com/ge0rg/aprsdroid-telemetry-demo

Cheers,

Rob wx9o

[Chris Nicholas]

thank you for your prompt reply; interesting indeed! . I might get one of you boxes just to play with the brand new Yaesu FT-60R handset I bought today :-) 

I wonder if I could just use the serial USB port on the Android device to talk to the TNC; I need to have it connected to some kind of "glue" board anyway for charging by solar. And though it would be slick to use Radiometrix transceiver modules fully integrated with the digipeater, practically speaking, for first pass and because of the distances involved, I'll probably just use TNCs with 5W handsets.

Porting digipeating to APRSdroid might prove non-trivial ... the code base there is Scala, and it seems quite oriented for transmit only. And I need a glue board anyway; might as well put an Arduino board on it...

so...suppose the standard package is composed of 2 parts: an Android sensor pack that eventually calls SEND_MESSAGE at ground level + a serial cable to a mobilinkd-derivative, beefed up for digipeating and distributing power from a solar panal, and a 5W handset ... all wrapped up to be waterproof ...

hmmm ...

Chris

[Chris Nicholas]

this post is interesting:
http://android.serverbox.ch/?p=549

but I think I want the Arduino/"glue" board to act as the Host, so it can send power to the Android device, as per:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/usb/index.html

Chris

[Chris Nicholas]

this looks interesting too - http://www.instructables.com/id/External-Sensors-Charging-w-Android-USB-aka-Micro-/

Chris

[Chris Nicholas]

(more reading.... the APRS spec has a LOT of functionality in it, for sure... sending vector graphics! etc)
probably best to just add the FTDI shield to a UNO board in order to support the USB Host Shield.

Of course, that begs the question of "OK, now what?" on the Android side. Clearly, needs a setup program, etc, that perhaps I'll steal code from APRSdroid; need to look at it more closely..
But at a minimum, need to enter one's call sign ,etc, though I was thinking to establish, at least for parks, temp call signs that encode the station's lat/long .  Also checking out pricing on the 500mw Radiometrix VHF transceiver; having it built-in would solve a lot of problems versus putting 5W handsets + TNCs; perhaps make it a shield unto itself.

I guess any MESSAGE sent specifically to that digipeating station would just be passed along to the USB accessory (i.e. the Android device); everything else would just be digipeated without bothering Android .... ?

Chris

[Chris Nicholas]

still need to figure out the solar power, but.... this looks like almost exactly what I was looking for... all in one package;
https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=164

but have sure learned a LOT in the past few days!!  sorry for spamming this list, but beginning to appreciate the power of APRS!!

Chris