Daniel He's Miniature Argos Satellite Tracking Cell for Wildlife Research

The study of migrating animals with a focus on the tracking of long distance migrants has been in the research for a couple of decades — with radio telemetry, which required an observer to physically follow the animal to the recent development on this interesting technique of satellite telemetry. For those new to satellite telemetry, Argos is a satellite-based system that collects, processes and disseminates environmental data. It has been in use to keep tabs on wildlife but the commercial modules available are still rather expensive.

To address the problem of cost inefficiency and the size of commercially manufactured modules, Daniel He has come up with a miniature tracking cell for wildlife research. This lightweight module weighs less than 2gm, hence can be used to monitor migrating animals with ease. The maker claims that “CNES plans to have up to 25 nanosatellites with the Argos system onboard in orbit by 2023.” These new satellites are capable of giving up to 15 minutes of precise location with an accuracy of up to 150 meters.

At the heart of the module is the STMicroelectronics’ STM32L011F4Ux Cortex-M0+ microcontroller. The board comes with a solar charging circuit that gives it a lifetime of up to one year. While testing the device, the MCU and the power regulators worked perfectly well; however, the solar charging and SPI flash had some minor issues that were easily solved by He.

It's interesting to see such a project come from the open source community and help with ongoing research. Files can be found on GitHub.