ALL Types of long distance communication between microcontrollers

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
Hello everyone.
I would like to do an electronics project, and being a beginner, I would be interested in knowing fifth types of distance communication exist and what they are.

In particular, I would like to find a way to make a GPS monitoring circuit and a circuit based on microcontrollers communicate remotely and in real time.

I would like the GPS circuit to be able to send data even over a long distance to the microcontroller based circuit.

Thanks a lot to everyone.
sorry for the bad english.
 

Ian0

Joined Aug 7, 2020
9,671
How? Cable? radio? Fibre-optic?
what’s a long distance? For a microcontroller with standard output drive, one metre is a long distance.
 

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
How? Cable? radio? Fibre-optic?
what’s a long distance? For a microcontroller with standard output drive, one metre is a long distance.
Hello Ian0.
I want to do this project with a without any cable.
In my Dreams the long distance Is about almost 3km or more, maybe all around the world.
Thank you very much.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
THis description seems a whole lot like communication with a drone aircraft, knowing exactly where it is and which way it is going. The communicating control signals, which will not be much of a challenge once communication is established. ALL OF THAT HARDWARE exists today and is commercially available. But you need to understand that the transmitting power required to go very far is in the regulated realm and so licensing is often required.
GPS position monitoring is also used in asset tracking systems and vehicle location reporting systems.
So there is a whole lot of knowledge in existence about what you seek, it seems. Some folks visiting this thread will be experts on the topic, I am not one of them.
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,712
This is a typical question. Anything is possible.
And this is the typical answer.

Forget about long distance communication for now.
Forget about GPS and microcontrollers.

Tell us exactly what you are trying to build. Tell all. No secrets.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
Well put M.C.! I wonder what course of study the TS is involved in. My imagination ran toward a drone using non-standard non-licensed covert communications protocols.
But really, there are devices just as described available for purchase. But the price is indeed rather much. Way more than a nice house in my area, for comparison.
 

ronsimpson

Joined Oct 7, 2019
2,989
900mhz
I have used the 900mhz band. It does not have the "won't work in the rain problem" of 2.4ghz.
It is line of sight like most high frequency bands.
In a mesh network it hops from radio to radio to radio to get more distance.
There are limitations as to how much data you can transmit.
I used the footprint shown below because there are a number of radios in that shape. 900, 2.4, 5, 860mhz, etc.
1643684206389.png
 

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
THis description seems a whole lot like communication with a drone aircraft, knowing exactly where it is and which way it is going. The communicating control signals, which will not be much of a challenge once communication is established. ALL OF THAT HARDWARE exists today and is commercially available. But you need to understand that the transmitting power required to go very far is in the regulated realm and so licensing is often required.
GPS position monitoring is also used in asset tracking systems and vehicle location reporting systems.
So there is a whole lot of knowledge in existence about what you seek, it seems. Some folks visiting this thread will be experts on the topic, I am not one of them.
Hi MisterBill2.
Thank you.
 

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
900mhz
I have used the 900mhz band. It does not have the "won't work in the rain problem" of 2.4ghz.
It is line of sight like most high frequency bands.
In a mesh network it hops from radio to radio to radio to get more distance.
There are limitations as to how much data you can transmit.
I used the footprint shown below because there are a number of radios in that shape. 900, 2.4, 5, 860mhz, etc.
View attachment 259310
Hi ronsimpson.
Could you please explain how this communication works?
What Is the name of this communication?
How much distance It can be able to support?
Thank you again.
 

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
This is a typical question. Anything is possible.
And this is the typical answer.

Forget about long distance communication for now.
Forget about GPS and microcontrollers.

Tell us exactly what you are trying to build. Tell all. No secrets.
hi MrChips!
Now i Try to explain what project i dream to build.
With no secrets.
Always Sorry for the bad English.

i want to make a devices that can be able to monitoring in real time the position of a work veichle.

so I guess I'm the head of a transport and machinery company.
I would like to be able to install a monitoring device on each of my means of transport.

In this way I could make sure to check the position of my means of transport (and therefore of my workers) when I want and simply from my office.

Furthermore, I could accumulate work data and make payrolls securely without needing my employees' daily work report.

In this case the means of transport must not exceed the distance from my office of more or less 100 or 200 km.
Obviously I would like to have no distance limit, but not necessarily.

and this and how much.
I know it is very difficult for me even though I studied electronics at school.

my dream would be to make this device with my own hands.

thanks everyone again.
 

Ya’akov

Joined Jan 27, 2019
9,070
Hello, @Gerelectronic.

Based on your description of what you want to do I have a some comments and a question.

First, GPS trackers are ubiquitous commercial products. To make your own is very much a “reinventing the wheel” exercise.
Why do you want to build one instead of simply buy one that is well designed, maintained, and supported by a specialist company?

Second, if you do build one, you are almost certainly going to need to use the mobile phone network. This is because there is no frequency band without infrastructure on which you could operate such a system in the kilometers range at low power and reliably.

By “infrastructure” I mean the same sort of thing as the mobile network provides: towers with antennas and receivers covering the area of interest with interconnections to “backhaul” the data to you. Not only are the technical challenges and cost of building such a thing prohibitive, the regulatory problems (permits, licensing of bandwidth, etc.) are overwhelming.*

So, the mobile network is your almost certain choice. Fortunately, this is pretty easy to do with available modules. However, there will be a monthly cost for this, and you will need to choose how you want to deploy It. You could just buy GSM modules, put SIMs in them, and use GPRS or similar data services. In other words, like putting phones in each vehicle.

Another alternative is to use boards, like the particle.io Boron which targets applications like yours and includes access to a very nice infrastructure for maintenance of the software and hardware you deploy. They have tracker examples which wouled give you a head start. The access to the mobile network is charge on a usage sensitive basis, so it can be far more affordable than just buying a SIM from the local mobile provider.

Whatever you do is not going to be simple, so I encourage you to consider simply buying products already built. On the other hand if you want to build this for reasons other than just to have the functionality, I suggest you seriously consider Particle to simplify many aspects of it that you would otherwise have to work out yourself.

*I will mention here, that LoRa is a possibility but only if there are sufficient LoRa gateways in place, something that might be true in the future but won’t be today. Satellite is also theoretically possible, but suffers from the cost problem, though if you needed a few satellite stations for really remote operation, you could do that.
 

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
Even using commercial modules, this is not a beginner project. What is your level of experience?

Bob
Hi BobTPH.
I study electronics at second grade high school in italy for 5 years. I have a little less intermediate experience, but you know that you never stop learning and in fact I don't really know how to carry out this project in the most suitable way.

thank you.
Gerry.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
Several products made for the trucking industry were available and able to cover the whole USA. They provide the added benefit of being able to send messages in both directions. At least one of them utilizes the cellular text messaging system and thus does not need any licensing at all. But since I am not now involved with any aspect of the trucking industry I have no current information, so that news is at least several years old. Probably they are better and cheaper by now.
 

DickCappels

Joined Aug 21, 2008
10,152
If GSM works in your country you might be interested in something like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303858127003?hash=item46bf5b109b:g:FGAAAOSwMU5gC-S3

It is not as precise as GPS but it is inexpensive and has a long battery life. It needs a SIM card to operate.

Another approach is to buy an old iPhone and use Apple's Find My iPhone application to track the phone. You can see what part of building the phone is in by zooming in on the map.
 

Thread Starter

Gerelectronic

Joined Mar 3, 2021
15
Second grade highschool is normally completed in one year. In rare cases some may need to repeat it. But taking five years only for second grade . ?
The group of 5 years After the group of 3 years that forms the high School Is called "second grade High School" or "upper secondary School"
I think that the school system in Italy at differenti forme the school systems of other country.
Thank you.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
The group of 5 years After the group of 3 years that forms the high School Is called "second grade High School" or "upper secondary School"
I think that the school system in Italy at differenti forme the school systems of other country.
Thank you.
Certainly very different from my high school experience. years in "junior" high school followed by 4 years in senior high school. and that in preparation for the alternative to 5 years of engineering college. all that as the foundation for an enjoyable career of continuing to learn.
And now, to be able to tell the TS that the system they want is available and it is the result of several teams of engineers spending a great deal of time and effort. And having gone through the exercise of creating an alternative system prior to the creation of GPS and even the internet, letting you know that even the block diagram gets complicated.
In addition, even if you were handed an adequate set of drawings and plans for the system, it would still be a huge task to assemble it.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
I work in close contact with one company involved in logistics handling hundreds of trucks over the whole country. They are subscribers of a service providing permanent info online. On the monitor you can see, for every truck, position, speed, time stamp of any relevant occurrence plus many other details.

In the past, NEXTEL (originated in USA) provided communications for the (truck) fleets / base and later added the localization service. Not sure if they are still in business.

With their network we used to communicate our people in this country. They were only limited by the lack of coverage of their antennae. Suddenly they started to loose popularity. Working in Brazil I was able to call my office in Bs Aires or talk to my son in USA. That PTT system was excellent.

Do not even attempt to spend time, patience and money to try anything by yourself. Give a quick peek of what the big players do in your area and learn from there.
 
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