Abstract
This work presents an alternative wearable tracking system based on a low-power wide area network. A complete GPS receiver was integrated with a textile substrate, and the latitude and longitude coordinates were sent to the cloud by means of the SIM-less SIGFOX network. To send the coordinates over SIGFOX protocol, a specific codification algorithm was used and a customized UHF antenna on jeans fabric was designed, simulated and tested. Moreover, to guarantee the compliance to international regulations for human body exposure to electromagnetic radiation, the electromagnetic specific absorption rate of this antenna was analyzed. A specific remote server was developed to decode the latitude and longitude coordinates. Once the coordinates have been decoded, the remote server sends this information to the open source data viewer SENTILO to show the location of the sensor node in a map. The functionality of this system has been demonstrated experimentally. The results guarantee the utility and wearability of the proposed tracking system for the development of sensor nodes and point out that it can be a low cost alternative to other commercial products based on GSM networks.
Highlights
In recent years, the electronic semiconductors industry growth has allowed a reduction in the cost of electronic products and an increase in wireless communication applications
An alternative wearable tracking system based on the low-power wide area network network has been developed
The system consists of a GPS receiver and SIGFOX transmitter integrated with a integrated with a textile substrate
Summary
The electronic semiconductors industry growth has allowed a reduction in the cost of electronic products and an increase in wireless communication applications. The WSN consist of small communication nodes These nodes contain a sensing part, a microcontroller, communication components and power supply (typically a battery). These nodes should fulfil restrictions of low-cost and low-power consumption to guarantee their usefulness. In this sense, some references can be found in the literature focused on increasing battery lifetimes by means of codified algorithms [1], reducing transmission requirements, or proposing additional energy sources, such as radiofrequency (RF) energy harvesting [2]
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