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A GPS tracking system for marinas, boat rentals, and other watercraft

Raveon’s asset tracking solutions gives customers the ability to focus on keeping up with their assets, instead of keeping up with monthly fees.  Using radio transmissions to broadcast received GPS messages, Raveon’s GPS transponders allow a marina operator to track all of their rental boats or other watercraft in real-time using a graphical display.  Competing GSM (cellular based) systems charge monthly data usage fees to transmit your GPS tracking information through their cellular telephone signal towers, and only function where you have cell phone service.

If you can’t make a cell phone call, likely, you can’t be tracked. Instead of getting the oars out when you lose cell service, the RavTrack real-time tracking system provides a complete standalone system.  No usage fees or third party infrastructure is necessary; instead RavTrack GPS transponders operate via VHF or UHF digital radio transmissions, providing you with instant status updates on every rental boat or other watercraft in your fleet.

Raveon’s easily configured and customizable GPS tracking system is designed to operate where and how you want it to operate, including a specialty line of weatherproof IP65 rated GPS transponders perfect for small watercraft such as jet-skis, kayaks, or the like.RTPC screen

On the boat, the Raveon GPS transponder simply requires access to the 12 volt (DC) power source, that’s likely already a part of your rental boat, an antenna for the radio, and an antenna for the GPS.  With available power saving modes, Raveon’s data radios will only draw a small fraction of power, meaning that it’s even suitable for a sailboat!

Raveon also offers compact design options suitable for jet skis (UHF systems suggested for Jet Skis for more compact sized antennas.)  Once your transponder is installed in your boat just turn it on and go.  The transponder will immediately begin searching for GPS lock and will begin broadcasting its location automatically at your chosen intervals.

The powerful GPS transponders broadcast position signals that can easily be received several miles over open water.  At your marina, truck, or your general base of operations, another transponder and antenna receives the incoming GPS reports from the boat or rental fleet. View the Port Asset Tracking infographic to learn more about how the RavTrack system is designed. For more information, learn how the Port of Long Beach partnered with Ravtrack for their tracking needs.

GPS Tracking Software

Raveon’s Windows based RavTrackPC program is available to provide you with a platform to view your assets (As seen in the image on the right.)  Customization integrated into RavTrackPC will provide your tracking system with the map you want to use.   You will be able to see the locations and IDs of each of your tracked boats out on the water on your map.  You can also configure RavTrackPC with rules and alerts so that if your boat starts moving at 2 AM or simply hasn’t reported in several minutes an alarm will be triggered.  Alarms can do anything from making a loud noise, to sending an email, tweet or SMS message, to triggering a third party program on your system through a command line interface.

RavTrackPC does far more than just tracking movement too, it can be used to track speed, duration and proximity to other tracked objects as well!  RavTrackPC provides Geo-Fence alerts, where you can create invisible borders to alert you when a boat is not where it’s supposed to be, or when it is heading back in to the marina or launch ramp.  This greatly facilitates dock service not to mention how much easier it is catch your daredevil kids/clients in the act of doing 40mph in a no-wake zone in your boat!  It also keeps the harbor master happy.  Furthermore, if the people in any of your rental craft have an issue, the optionally installed boat assistance switch can be triggered and help can be dispatched directly to the distressed boat’s location.

Displaying GPS Position

The RavTrack GPS transponder can also be set up to be displayed on many on-board GPS systems for boats or vehicles.  (Such as the Lowrance HDS-5 and Garmin 400 seen in the images on the left.)   This means that not only can you track your boat from the marina, it means that your boat or tow vehicle can also track yourboats!  No more awkwardly waiting around at the loading/unloading ramps!  You can watch your boat approach from anywhere, long before it’s in eyesight range.  This is also very useful for the private yacht operator in keeping track of tender boats or tracking recreational watercraft.  Not only is RavTrack great for keeping marina staff updated, the mobile tracking capabilities of RavTrack are ideal for use in your service or rescue craft.  Furthermore, if your rental boat has a compatible display, your marina dock location can appear on the display to guide the lost helmsman back home. display

Raveon’s GPS tracking solutions provide a service that’s simple to use as well as appropriate for an enjoyable boating experience while eliminating the stress of uncertainty.  Whether that means the peace of mind of knowing your customers whereabouts, or simply knowing your boat/fleet will be where you parked it last, Raveon’s stand alone, recurring-fee free, real time tracking will help improve your overall customer service, safety, and fleet maintenance.

Give us a call to discuss your particular operation and allow us to customize a GPS tracking solution tailored to what you need from your GPS tracking system, including system planning, custom radio configurations, or other special needs. If you have questions about the RavTrack GPS tracking system, we also offer an informative webinar.

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Digital Odometer Accuracy

Digital Odometers are incorporated into some Raveon GPS transponders such as the M7-GX.  They work very well, but you will see a difference in reading between the digital odometer reported by a GPS transponder and the odometer on the dashboard.

  1. A GPS transponder with GPS uses its GPS location to calculate distance .  Every second it computes how far it moved, and adds this up to accumulate the odometer reading.
  2. At any time, you can type a command into the radio to force the Odometer reading to be any reading you want.  Because this can be set anytime to any value, the GPS odometer should not be the sole mechanism for determining maintenance intervals.
  3. The digital odometer in the GPS transponder will vary from the dash-board reading. Typically we see 1-5%.
  4. Reasons for the difference between the dashboard and the GPS transponder reading are:
    1. The GPS Signal itself is only accurate to about 30 feet typically. Sometimes 10 feet sometimes 100 feet.
    2. Near tall building, tree, canyons, down-town cities, GPS accuracy may only be 100 feet.  Adding 100 feet of error every seconds adds up quickly.
    3. If a car drives in a tight circle, the dashboard odometer climbs, but the GPS odometer reading sees little distance change.
    4. If a vehicle drives in reverse, the odometer reading may go backwards.  The GPS odometer will not.
    5. The resolution of the GPS signal is about 1 meter.
  5. Raveon recommends using the digital odometer to determine changes in odometer readings not absolute numbers.
    1. To see how many miles a vehicle has on it, use the dashboard odometer.
    2. To track how many miles a day  vehicle travels, use the GPS.
    3. To see how far a vehicle drove between events or rule alerts, use the digital odometer in the GPS transponder.
    4. To track intervals between maintenance, use the GPS and dashboard.

Digital odometers based on GPS location are great for monitoring vehicle activity and tracking usage.  If you want to keep them in sync with the dashboard, you’ve got a big challenge and a lot of updating to do.

 

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Displaying A Snail Trail

RavTrack PC has the ability to place “Track Dots” on the map as tracked objects move around.  There are a number of user-configurable features in RavTrack PC that facilitate the Track Dot display, such as color and frequency of the dots. 

To enable Track Dots, open:

File > Program Properties > Units and Display

This panel is used to configure the Track Dot features.  Check the “Draw Track Dots” option to enable Track Dots.  Set the “Dot Size” to a size that is visible on your map.  4-10 is a typical size.  20 is a very big circle-dot.

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If you set the “Minimum distance between dots” to zero, they will be drawn on the map every time the transponder reports in.  On some systems, this may clutter the map, so you may want to set the minimum distance to some larger number, say 100 feet.  If it is set to 100ft, then a dot will appear on the map every time the tracked object moves more than 100 feet. 

Normally, the color of the tracked dot will be the color assigned to the particular tracked object.  The settings for each tracked object can be edited by double-clicking on the ID in the tracked object list.  This brings up a window to configure the object’s icon, settings, and track dot color. 

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Choose a color that is visible on the type of map you are using.  If you do not want tracked dots drawn for a particular object, uncheck “Place Tracked Dots along path”.

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Why Use VHF/UHF GPS Transponders Instead of Cellular Connected Devices

Often a system decision comes down to cellular vs. VHF/UHF RF communications.

Cellular based GPS transponders and cell phones rely on a public cellular radio networks to connect to the carrier’s network, which then passes the GPS location information to the end user via the Internet.

VHF/UHF radio networks utilize private licensed radio frequencies to communicate.  The radio networks are privately operated, and may be owned and controlled by the system operator.

When trying to decide if dedicated VHF/UHF GPS transponders like the Raveon ATLAS PT or M7-GX transponder is the right choice, or cellular transponder is the right choice, keep these very important points in mind:

  1. You will know where everyone is at all times.  A GPS Transponder operates at all times, with fast update rates, even when cell service is not available. They even operate when a base station is off-line.
  2. Battery Life.  A GPS transponder can run for days on a single charge.  Most cell-phones will operate 8 hours or so when tracking in real-time.
  3. Emergency Assistance.  In an emergency situation, both technologies can be used to summon help.  But if the person is incapable of moving or unconscious, making a call is not possible.  The VHF/UHF GPS transponder will not only continue to send the locations out, but alert that no motion is taking place.
  4. Search and Recovery.  Raveon’s GPS transponders automatically, continuously, and quickly transmit GPS location and status.  Rescue personnel can use a tablet or laptop computer to locate the transponder in real-time, live while searching.  Finding the transponder can take only minutes. No internet connection is needed.
  5. No Voice Communications.   In many situations it is undesirable to have the people being tracked to be able to talk amongst themselves. This could be for training purposes, privacy, or security. Learn more about how the RavTrack system is designed by viewing our asset tracking infographic.
  6. Fast Updates.   Cellular locators get quite expensive unless they are configured for very slow update rates.  Tracking hundreds of vehicles or people requires an advanced channel-access protocol like Raveon’s TDMA protocol. Airtime is free on the VHF and UHF bands.
  7. Log Files.  With fast updates, the system can store GPS data to log files for later review or in case there is an incident, the log can be queried to determine what happened during the incident.
  8. Keep People Honest.  Often GPS tracking is done to monitor behavior to verify that they are following rules and staying within limits and boundaries.  Cell phones will not help in these situations. They can be turned off (The ATLAS PT’s power button can be disabled).
  9. Rugged.  The ATLAS PT is submersible to 1 meter of water, very rugged, and made from aluminum.  Few cellphones can take the abuse the ATLAS PT can.  When people lives are at stake, a rugged, long-life product is important.

Comparison of Features

Feature

GPS Transponder PRO

GPS Transponder CON

Cellular GPS
PRO

Cellular GPS
CON

Voice Communications

User’s Can’t communicate. Security. Privacy.

Cannot call for help without pressing the ALert Button

Users can chatter amongst themselves.

Users can cheat if they are supposed to be on their own.
Voice comms takes up bandwidth used for GPS tracking.

Battery Life

Excellent
24-48 hours

8-12 hours

Real-time Tracking

Excellent

   Limited bandwidth  Excellent

Expensive

Safety System

Great situational awareness

No voice. Cannot talk to rescue.

User must operate their own private radio network.

Can talk to rescuers

Will not work when out of cell coverage or cellular system is down.

User Cannot Turn Power Off

Always On when needed

Requires charger to shut off.

None.

Users can turn radio off if they don’t want to be tracked.

No Motion Alert

Automatic Transmission if idle to long.

Sometime false alerts when sleeping/resting.

None

Few cellular transponders have this feature.

Live Tracking by Searcher and Rescue

Rescuers, cadre or commanders can drive right up to the transponder.

None

Personnel can use voice to help direct searchers to find them

Sometimes difficult to explain location.  Must be within cell service, and probably standing up.

Learn more about the advantages of the RavTrack system by attending our webinar. We work with some of the most successful companies and government agencies, including the FAA. Find out more about our customers.

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Why Use GPS Trackers Instead of Two-Way Radio?

 

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Sometimes two-way voice radios can be used for safety and personnel locating.  When trying to decide if a dedicated GPS transponder like the Raveon ATLAS PT or a voice radio is the right choice, keep these important points in mind:

  1. You will know where everyone is at all times.  A GPS Transponder operates at all times, not just when the user presses the PTT button.
  2. Battery Life.  A GPS transponder can run for days on a single charge.  Most portable radios will operate 8 hours or so. If used a lot or the PTT button is accidentally pressed, the batteries will last much less.
  3. Emergency Assistance.  In an emergency situation, both technologies can be used to summon help.  But if the person is incapable of moving or unconscious, pressing a PTT button is not possible and the GPS transponder will not only continue to send the locations out, but alert that no motion is taking place.
  4. Search and Recovery.  Raveon’s GPS transponders automatically, continuously, and quickly transmit GPS location and status.  Rescue personnel can use a tablet or laptop computer to locate the transponder in real-time, live while searching.  Finding the transponder and locating the personnel can take only minutes. View our asset tracking and safety infographic, which describes how the Ravtrack system is designed.
  5. No Voice Communications.   In many situations it is undesirable to have the people being tracked to be able to talk amongst themselves. This could be for training purposes, privacy, or security.  Or, they may already have voice radios, and real-time tracking using a dedicated channel frees up many other channels for voice comms.
  6. Fast Updates.   GPS locators in voice radios are very slow to update, and take a lot of air-time.  Tracking hundreds of vehicles or people requires an advanced channel-access protocol like Raveon’s TDMA protocol.
  7. Log Files.  With fast updates, the system can store GPS data to log files for later review or in case there is an incident, the log can be queried to determine what happened during the incident.
  8. Keep People Honest.  Often GPS tracking is done to monitor behavior to verify that they are following rules and staying within limits and boundaries.  Voice radios will not help in these situations.  Voice radios can be turned off (The ATLAS PT’s power button can be disabled), and people disrespecting their restrictions will probably not get on the radio and announce it.
  9. Rugged.  The ATLAS PT is submersible to 1 meter of water, very rugged, and made from aluminum.  Few plastic voice radios can take the abuse the ATLAS PT can.  When people lives are at stake, a rugged, long-life product is important.

Comparison of Features

Feature

GPS Transponder PRO

GPS Transponder CON

Voice Radio
PRO

Voice Radio
CON

Voice Communications

User’s Can’t communicate. Security. Privacy.

Cannot call for help without pressing the ALert Button

Users can chatter amongst themselves.

Users can cheat if they are supposed to be on their own.
Voice comms takes up bandwidth used for GPS tracking.

Battery Life

Excellent
24-48 hours

8-12 hours

Real-time Tracking

Excellent

Cannot Do

Safety System

Great situational awareness

No voice. Cannot talk to rescue.

Can talk to rescuers

Must manually press PTT. No help for unconscious personnel.

User Cannot Turn Power Off

Always On when needed

Requires charger to shut off.

None.

Users can turn radio off if they don’t want to be tracked.

No Motion Alert

Automatic Transmission if idle to long.

Sometime false alerts when sleeping/resting.

None

Few voice radios have this feature.

Live Tracking by Searcher and Rescue

Rescuers, cadre or commanders can drive right up to the transponder.

None

Personnel can use voice to help direct searchers to find them

Sometimes difficult to explain location.  Person must be conscious. Person must know where they are.

To learn more about the advantages of the RavTrack system, attend our webinar.

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GPS Antenna Selection

The selection of a proper GPS antenna for a GPS tracking system is very important.  The main criteria to keep in mind when choosing a GPS antenna to work with your Raveon M7 series GPS transponder is:

  1. Amplified.  The antenna must have a build in RF amplifier that will operate off of 3.3V DC.  The power for the GPS antenna’s RF amplifier is feed down the center-conductor of the coax-cable going to the antenna. 
  2. SMA connector.  The RF connector for the GPS antenna is an SMA type connector. The cable will have a male connector on it, and the M7 has the female.
  3. Proper Mount.  GPS antennas are available in many different mounting configurations. 
  4. Proper Environment.  Some antennas are designed to be mounted on the roof of a car, others are suitable in salt-water environment and others are not.  Consult the manufacturer for information on temperature range and environmental restrictions. 

Raveon offers a number of GPS antennas for mobile GPS tracking.  They are shown on the website here:
http://ravtrack.com/gps-antenna-choices 

The simplest GPS antenna for vehicle mounting is Raveon’s RV-AN-GP2:

universal active gps antenna installation

Talley Electronics (http://www.talleycom.com/ ) distributes many different GPS antennas, and if you wish to order them from Raveon with your M7 transponder, please just add it to your order, and we will include it with your shipment. 

Talley’s GPS antennas are in their on-line catalog here: http://www.talleycom.com/store/category.jsp?cat=311&clr=1 

The MobileMark SM-1575-2C-WHT-180 GPS antenna is a rugged sealed amplified antenna suitable for most any application, even those with harsh environments. 

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GPS Odometer

Raveon M7 GPS transponders with firmware version D1 or higher allows for the transmission of an electronic “GPS Odometer”. The GPS Odometer is a virtual odometer, not the actual vehicle odometer reading. It is implemented by integrating the distances travelled, based upon GPS locations.  With every GPS position/status message the M7 transponder sends, it can also send the reading of the digital odometer.

The standard $PRAVE message does not have an odometer field, so a variation of the $PRAVE message is used for this system. It is still called the $PRAVE message, but has an additional field in it. The original $PRAVE message had 17 fields in it, and for this system, there will be 18. The Odometer field is added to the end of the message, just before the * character.

The $PRAVE Message – 18 Fields w/Odometer

Field Usage Comments
1 $PRAVE Raveon Proprietary Header
2 From ID The ID of the transponder that transmitted its position over the air. It is a decimal integer number, 0 – 9999.
3 To ID The ID that this position report was sent to. It is a decimal integer number, 0 – 9999.
4 Latitude ddmm.mmmm format. It is signed. + is north, – is south. No sign means north. Note: typically there are 4 decimal places, but as few as 0 decimal places are possible. Null field if no GPS lock. The dd portion is the degrees. mm.mmmmm is the decimal minutes. To parse it, find the decimal point, and the two digits in front of the decimal point are the minutes. The digits after the decimal point is the decimal portion of the minutes, and the digits in front of the minutes represent the degrees. If it is negative degrees there will be a negative sign in front of the number. The actual decimal degrees is: dd + (mm.mmmm/60)
5 Longitude dddmm.mmmm format. It is signed. + is east, – is west. No sign means east. Note: typically there are 4 decimal places, but as few as 0 decimal places are possible. Null field if no GPS lock.

The ddd portion is the degrees. mm.mmmmm is the decimal minutes. To parse it, find the decimal point, and the two digits in front of the decimal point are the minutes. The digits after the decimal point is the decimal portion of the minutes, and the digits in front of the minutes represent the degrees. If it is negative degrees there will be a negative sign in front of the number. The actual decimal degrees is: ddd + (mm.mmmm/60)
6 UTC time The UTC time at the time the transmission was made. Hhmmss format. Null field if no GPS lock.
7 GPS Status 0=not valid position. > 0 is valid GPS. 1=GPS locked and valid position, 2=GPS locked with WAAS corrections applied
8 Num Satellites The number of satellites in view
9 Altitude The altitude in meters. Null field if no GPS lock.
10 Temperature The internal temperature of the RV-M7 in degrees C. Typically this is 5-20 degrees above ambient.
11 Voltage Input voltage to the device that sent this position.
12 IO status A decimal number representing the binary inputs.
13 RSSI The signal-strength of this message as measured by the receiver, in dBm. Note, if the message went through a repeater, it is the signal lever of the repeated message.
14 Speed The speed of the device in km/hour, 0-255
15 Heading The heading of the device 0-360 degrees.
16 Alerts Alert codes for alerts currently indicated in the device. NULL means no alerts. “P” means a proximity alert. “A”means alert. “C” means critical alert, “M” means man-down.
17 Spare A spare field. May be used for UTC date in the future. Typically NULL.
18 Odometer The odometer reading if available. It is in kilometers and may or may not have decimal places. Most reported values typically have are one decimal place. NULL/empty if reading is not available or transponder did not send it. Firmware version D1or higher.
19 * The “*” NMEA end-of-message identifier.
20 Checksum The NMEA 0183 checksum.

Example $PRAVE Sentence:

$PRAVE,0001,0001,3308.9051,-11713.1164,195348,1,10,168,31,13.3,3,-83,0,0,,1003.4*66

If power is lost at the wrong moment, the transponder will recover the last stored odometer reading, which may be a little less than the actual reading last reported. Software that uses the odometer reading should take into account the possibility of the reading going backward or restart at 0 with a new transponder.

The odometer reading is in kilometers. It may be reported with 0,1,2, or 3 decimal places. On legacy Raveon GPS transponders, the $PRAVE field for the odometer reading will be NULL.

The odometer value may be initialized or set with the ODO xxxx command, where xxx is the odometer value in kilometers.

In the M7 GPS transponder, the Odometer value is periodically stored in non-volatile memory inside the GPS transponder. Upon power up, the stored value is restored and continues to accumulate the distance traveled.

Enabling the Odometer Feature

By default, the GPS tracking transponders do not transmit the odometer reading.  They default to using over-the-air format “0”.  To enable a transponder to transmit the digital odometer reading, set the over-the-air message type to type “6” using the OTAFORMAT command:

   OTAFORMAT 6

With OTAFORMAT set to 6, the GPS tracking transponder will transmit the odometer reading every transmission.  The receiving radio modem must also have firmware D1 or higher on it to accept an over-the-air type 6 message, and output the PRAVE message with the odometer reading in field 18.  A GPS transponder or data radio modem with firmware version D1 or higher can accept over-the-air message from transponders with or without the odometer reading, and will automatically detect the over-the-air format and output the proper $PRAVE message.

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Campus Bus Tracking (Missouri State University)

Guest Blog posted by Corbin Campbell, Electronics Support Services Missouri State University
Just a little history, our Assistant Director of Public Safety had a project for me. Missouri State University had the ability to GPS track the shuttle bus fleet for the students, faculty, staff, and public safety. This was done using a wireless carrier and through a smartphone on each shuttle. The problem was the speed and the recurring data cost. We wanted to be able to track our shuttle fleet without the cellular cost and in real time. Other GPS systems that we looked at had cellular data fees and would only update once a minute. The cost of these systems were also not in the public safety budget. He knew there had to be some other options.  Being the campus radio guy, he thought that I might have seen something that would do what he wanted.  After some looking and talking with other GPS tracking  vendors, I came to the website of Raveon and the RV-M7-GX GPS modem. I knew that I had something that would do what I wanted but I wanted to to find out more.

bus tracking using gps radioI called Raveon and I started out with the tech support people since these are the guys that have to fix the problems.  After talking with them, I knew that I had to demo this product to see if the hype matched the product.  Sales at Raveon reviewed the project with me to make sure we had a good fit, and arranged to send us the proper gear for testing. A demo was programmed up on a UHF frequency that I had and the units were set up for 1 second updates. We used RavTrack PC for the interface and Google Earth for the mapping. After 30 minutes in the demo, we were sold. At that point Raveon sales located a contract our purchasing department could use and expedited a full system to meet our funding deadline.

In our full system installation, we are tracking 15 shuttles and our base unit is on the 20th floor of one of our buildings. We are tracking our shuttles every three seconds so we can add more shuttles without having to do a mass reprogramming. The shuttles use the combination GPS-UHF antennas to broadcast the data to the base station. The shuttle data is filtered, received, and converted to TCP\IP.  Networking tweaked the network to get the data to our Web Development team.  Web Development have taken the GPS data and created this custom map where students, faculty, and staff can pull up the shuttle locations, shuttle routes, speed, and direction. Just click on Shuttle Map and the route and you will see the bus stops and the icons that represent the shuttles. Web Development is also working on apps for the iPhone and Android to make it simple for students, faculty and staff.

I won’t say how much the system cost, but the system will pay for itself in less than two years from the savings in cellular data fees alone.

If you want to do GPS tracking this is the way to go.  If you don’t believe me, demo the product because the hardest thing that you will have to do is send it back!!!

P.S. Since we installed the system I have received multiple calls from my peers at other organizations.  They don’t believe we can track our fleet with 3 second updates, even though we see it live, and tell me I must be mistaken.  When I add that we do all of this without monthly service fees I think they write me off as a teller of tall tales.

Corbin Campbell
Electronics Support Services
campus bus tracking Missouri state

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GPS Tracking Service Comparison: RF versus Cellular

Common GPS vehicle tracking systems use “cellular” GSM/GPRS based transponders. Once the device calculates position from the GPS satellites the transponder transmits the position to the cellular GSM/GPRS network of receivers (cell towers) in the area.  At this point the GSM/GPRS system operator transports the data to your output device. Obviously the network operator charges a fee for this service, and is in control of your data as well.GPS Tracking Comparison: Radio Versus Cellular GSM/GPRS

Advantages of Radio-based Solutions

Radio-based solutions are different in that the radio transponders transmit position over a mobile radio frequency, typically designated by a government administrative agency for your exclusive use.  A GSM/GPRS system is not used; instead the operator of the radio system installs one or more receivers in position(s) around the area to be tracked. One receiver – or more exact: the connected RF antenna – is capable of covering an area of typically 10-25 mile radius from its own position, although this range might vary depending upon how high in elevation the receiving antenna is, and what the local terrain is like.

As the radio operator owns both the GPS position transmitters as well as the receiver(s), the fleet may transmit positions very frequently without concern for any fees, and with extremely fast delivery of data; allowing for true real-time position updates which common cellular solutions do not provide (or charge high fees for).

Often radio users install just one receiver, and mount it high atop a building, antenna tower, or point of elevation to cover the tracking area. This area might be a city, an open pit mine or other remote area, or a fleet of boats where the group can be tracked by other boats in the fleet. Since the entire system operates independently from any GSM/GPRS network, radio modems can work anywhere GPS satellite lock can be acquired.  In fact, the entire system can be mobile and – in case of Raveon’s M7-GX series radios – any fleet member can receive GPS reports from other fleet members in radio range, even while all are moving at high speeds.

Large Area Coverage

If a larger area of coverage is needed, or the tracking headquarters is not at a good location for area reception, a single radio repeater may be established at a preferred location where the repeater then wirelessly relays the transmissions it receives to the central tracking location. If the area of coverage is very large, then multiple receivers may be installed and connected together as well as to a central location via an IP backbone, which can include either a private network or the public internet.  The determination of the proper receiver layout is based principally upon the area the system must cover for effective fleet tracking, as well as the local terrain.

Primarily the decision to install a radio-based tracking solution versus a common cellular system comes down to the area of tracking coverage required and the size of the fleet involved. Even the area of coverage required is vast, requiring a large number of receivers, and the fleet itself is small, and the cost per vehicle may become prohibitive.  In these cases the operator must rely on a pre-installed network of GSM/GPRS system receivers owned and operated by another entity and pay their monthly fees. If GSM/GPRS service coverage is poor then an expensive communications satellite relay may be a considered alternative.

See this complete comparison of RF versus GSM/GPRS “cellular” vehicle tracking systems.

For more information about the RavTrack system:

  • Attend our webinar where we introduce the technology and provide an overview of the system.
  • View a list of some of our Customers. We partner with many diverse companies and government agencies.
  • Learn more about how the RavTrack system is designed by viewing the asset tracking infographic.
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Driver Fatigue Management

Spectrum Fatigue, a South Africa based company focused on the mining industry and the distributor of both the Raveon RavTrack real-time GPS tracking system and the new HaoNai Industrial MR688 Driver Fatigue Monitor in South Africa, has successfully integrated the MR688 with Raveon’s  RV-M7 “GX” series wireless GPS/data transponder for its driver fatigue management solution.

The MR688 monitors the driver’s eyes for abnormal closure, indicating the driver may be overly fatigued, and sets an alarm condition accordingly.  The integration, using the digital output from the MR688 connected to the related digital input on the Raveon real-time GPS transponder, allows the transponder to transmit every Alarm/Siren from the MR688 to the mine site remote control room environment, along with precise position information, and immediately pinpoints the vehicle of concern on an operational map of the site.

The control room, uses Raveon’s  RavTrack PC software package to track the mine vehicles in real time, and to capture and alert control room staff of any driver fatigue issues with both visual and audible alerts, and historically logs the event. The RavTrack PC software can also issue an email, text message, or tweet, for alarm notifications to off-site personnel.  The Spectrum Fatigue integration of the MR688 fatigue monitor, together with the advanced features of the RavTrack system,  offers a complete fatigue monitoring and vehicle tracking solution to any Opencast Mining operation.  The system is in operation in a leading South African mine today, and more sites will be implementing the solution soon. Learn more about how the RavTrack mining asset tracking system is organized by viewing the mine tracking infographic.

Driver Fatigue has been identified as a major cause of accidents and  incidents at Opencast Mining operations, and the Spectrum Fatigue solution greatly improves operational safety and efficiency.  According to the owner of Spectrum Fatigue, Pieter Jacobs;  “The implementation of both the MR688 and RV-M7 transponder in a mining truck,  offers our customers the best solution to actively monitor driver activity and fatigue related alarms”.

For more information on this fatigue monitoring and tracking solution email Pieter Jacobs or visit the company website. We also offer a regular webinar where we introduce the RavTrack tracking systems.

driver fatigue management