Thank you guys so much. This is a number of viable ways to solve the problem and I think I can be much more confident in how I am going to approach this.
Thanks again, Charlie On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 7:13 PM, Rodney Radford <[email protected]> wrote: > A distance of 1km is not that far and can be easily achieved with off the > shelf WiFi systems. I am currently working on a project that has an > Ubiquiti M2HP radio attached as the base system mounted at the top of a > building with an omnidirectional antenna, and the same radio with a smaller > omnidirectional antenna mounted on the mobile unit and we can easily get > that distance. > > The previous solutions are good, but to me, WiFi that just works out of > the box is a simple solution. > > As for my balloon communications, I had a 2-meter radio in the ham band, > broadcasting at about 2W and was able to get 100+ miles, but that small > antenna was up in the air over 15-20 miles high. I also tried using WiFi > with a parabolic dish on the ground and I was able to test that out to over > 2 miles on the ground, but that is a directional antenna - not very good > for your setup. > > > On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 3:23 PM Charles West via TriEmbed < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello! >> >> I'm in Lansdale, PA now but I was hoping I might be able to pick you >> guy's brains. My current big project is trying to build one or more robots >> to deliver food/drinks on golf courses. I'm currently trying to figure out >> the best way to maintain continuous(ish) contact between a access >> point/basestation at it's base of operations and 1 or more robots operating >> on the course. >> >> At a minimum, I would like to have the robot report its basic status >> (battery percent, GPS position) but it would also be great if it could >> stream video when required to allow teleprescence steering or determination >> of what is going on. The robot would probably be about 1 km from the base >> station at max. >> >> I'm currently considering 3 possible solutions but I'm pretty open to >> ideas: >> >> 1. Use a mobile hotspot/cell modem: >> For fixed $130 and monthly $20, I can get a mobile hotspot which >> provides one gig of data per month and more data for $5/gig. If I keep the >> reporting really light, this could work but the communication would have to >> be kept pretty limited. >> >> 2. XBee: >> These modules seem to float somewhere between $25 and $60 in >> prices, so a pair would be somewhere in the $50 to $120 range. Sparkfun >> had a good guide to XBee (https://www.sparkfun.com/pages/xbee_guide) but >> they are listing almost all of their products as retired (besides old >> series 1) and most of the stuff I read about XBee is from 2015-2016 so I am >> not sure what the best options are anymore. In any case, it looks like it >> would provide a low baud rate connection over the desired range. The main >> problem is that it requires working through XBee and making my basestation >> have to have special software to forward information. I'm also not sure >> about security and it is certainly not going to be streaming video. >> >> 3. Long range Wifi: >> Rodney's done some work in this area before with his weather >> balloon projects. I don't recall off the top of my head how far he managed >> to get but I do remember he had to use higher power than allowed without a >> higher grade amateur radio license. That power level would not work for a >> commercial operation. There are some companies that are selling solutions >> aimed at farms (http://ayrstone.com/www/?v=7516fd43adaa) and there seem >> to be off the shelf solutions that can get 500 ft (mostly aimed at >> hotels). The hotel systems seem to be in the $350 range and the farm >> systems in the $500 or so. The robot could use a high gain antenna, but it >> is not clear how much it helps. These systems have security built in and >> potentially can stream video if the range is long enough. Like hotspots, >> writing software for them would also be easy. >> >> What do you guys think? >> >> Thanks, >> Charlie >> _______________________________________________ >> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list >> >> To post message: [email protected] >> List info: http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_ >> triembed.org >> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org >> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: >> [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe >> >>
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