This page has been archived and is being provided for reference purposes only. The page is no longer being updated, and therefore, links on the page may be invalid.
| Materials Needed |
|
The Clark Animal Tracking System consists of a number of elements:
- Collars
- Mobile Basestations
- Fixed Basestations
- Repeater Stations
- Software
Research and management applications vary in their tracking system requirements. A very simple tracking system can consist of the collars alone, functioning as store-onboard units thus requiring animal recapture to retrieve the stored data. Adding a mobile basestation to the system allows real-time tracking of collared animals while the observer is in the field. The mobile basestation also enables remote downloading of data stored on the collars and remote uploading of new programming from the basestation to the collar. For round-the-clock, real-time tracking of animals within a fixed study area, a system of fixed basestations and repeater stations can be developed to collect, relay, store, and display location and other data for multiple animals simultaneously.
A bill of materials and detailed instructions for ordering electronic components (including custom printed circuit boards) and hardware are provided below for each element of the Clark ATS.
Collars
The materials needed to construct the tracking collars can be divided into 2 classes: electronic components and belting/enclosure. We will start with a description of how to order the electronic components including:
- 1 Printed Ciruit Board (PCB), custom
- 1 GPS receiver, surface-mount
- 2 capacitors, 10 uF, surface-mount
- 1 resistor, 10 ohm, surface-mount
- 1 regulator, 3.3 V output, surface-mount
- 1 coin-cell battery holder, 2032-size, surface-mount
- 1 GPS antenna jack, 5-contact, through-hole mount
- 1 main power cable with 2 male contacts and housing
- 1 radio power cable with 2 female contacts and housing
- 1 stereo jack, 3-contact, surface-mount/li>
- 1 reset button, 4-contact, surface-mount
- 2 transistors, N-FET, surface-mount
- 1 single-board computer, through-hole mount
- 1 spread spectrum radio transceiver, through-hole mount
Printed Circuit Board
The printed circuit board (PCB) for the collar was originally designed by Mark Kniep (former EE student at Boise State University) as part of a Senior Design course in Electrical Engineering. It is a custom product that must be ordered from a PCB manufacturer using the design schematics and specifications included in what are called "Gerber files". The Gerber files for the collar PCB as well as files for the mobile basestation PCB and GPS configuration PCB are available on this site. An example quote is also available here. The quote provides additional specifications such as drill hole sizes, trace widths, ect. which you need when placing the PCB order. We have primarily ordered our PCBs online. Ordering procedures vary somewhat from manufacturer to manufacturer but the Gerber files and the example quote should provide you with all the information you need to successfully place a PCB order. A dimensional drawing of the PCB is also available here.
GPS Receiver
The u-blox TIM-4H GPS receiver can be ordered on-line. The TIM-4H is a 16-channel GPS receiver which is very small, light-weight, and has ultra-low power consumption.
Regulator
Power supplied to the GPS receiver is regulated to 3.3 volts by a low-dropout regulator which can be ordered on-line. The LT1963EQ-3.3 is a surface-mount regulator but is large enough in size that it is fairly easy to solder to the PCB. This regulator also has shut-down circuitry allowing it to function as a switch for power supply control.
