Hi,
I want to track 6-12 rats simultaneously with <0.25m precision in an open field about 1 acre size. The rats are about 500 grams each, and can carry easily a tenth of their body weight. I have a decent amount of arduino experience, but with respect to GPS technology am a newb.
It seems that using one of the GPS-RTK modules as a base station is the way to go to get this sort of spatial precision. Can someone explain to me what all will be needed in terms of hardware to complete this project?
Much appreciated
john
Hi John.
I’m not sure you would be able to build a RTK based system that would physically be small enough to fit on a rat.
At a minimum, you’re going to need the following per rat:
- GPS
- GPS Antenna
- Battery or other power source
- RF transceiver
- Antenna for transceiver
- Micro controller board
All of that is going to get fairly bulky and will probably weigh 100 grams or more. You might be able to custom build boards that are physically small and light enough but anything we carry is very likely too big for a rat.
For a dog or possibly a large cat, it might work, but I don’t think you can make what we carry in a compact enough package to fit in the space you have.