Team RIP Harambe: Alexander Barnhardt, Micah Koenigsberg

Published November 27, 2016

GPS Tracking Device

Track your car from any Wifi enabled spot!

BeginnerFull instructions provided4,992

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Particle Photon

Particle Electron

serial oled lcd 0.96

Could not find the exact specification for the OLED screen, but it is the one that comes with the Photon Particle Makers Kit.

Particle Push Button

Software apps and online services

ThingSpeak API

Story

This project was simply about creating at GPS tracking system that gave real time updates on the location of a vehicle from anywhere in the world. In essence, we wanted to create a device that would run off of 3G cellular signal and Wifi in order to give updated GPS coordinates directly to the user.

This project was sparked by us wanting to create some measure of security for our vehicles using multiple particles. We decided on a GPS tracking system. The idea is simple; one particle would be connected to an OLED screen that receives the GPS and battery information, and the other particle would constantly feed GPS data to the cloud.

The first part of the project was applying the GPS code (shown below) to our Electron with 3G capability. There was no wiring required to operate the Electron, just simply connect the rechargeable battery to the Electron and flash the code.

Next, we had to wire the Micro OLED screen from the Photon Makers Kit to the Photon Particle. The wiring diagram for this part is shown below. However, Fritzing, the schematic program we used, did not have the correct OLED screen in its part inventory. They had a similar screen, but for reference, I have included the correct pin layout for wiring the screen to the Photon.

Once the screen is connected, we flashed the code shown below. Do not be alarmed if the screen does not print the data from the cloud automatically. Allow the data to refresh and print new data to the cloud. Once this happens, the screen will begin printing all necessary data.

The real trick to the project was finding a way to pull the data from the cloud and print it to the screen. This was the most difficult part of the project. Below is the code used for the project. It is a great example of how to pull the strings directly from the cloud and allocate them to a variable (which was the hardest part to solve).

Side Note: We got an actual test of how well the system works. While working on the project, we had to keep the Electron in an outdoors area so it could transmit GPS via 3G. The second we got the project completely working, I looked up an noticed that our Electron had been taken. It was still transmitting GPS to the OLED screen, so we tracked the GPS coordinates until we found the Electron. The GPS reading is good to within a 50 to 100 foot radius, which we found from our unusual test.

Code

OLED Code

C/C++

This is the code that was run on the Photon Particle connected to the OLED Screen and the push botton. It subscribed to relevant data being published by the other Particle and then displayed this information on the screen. Also, if the push button is held down it will publish an event that triggers If This Than That to send the longitude and latitude data from the gps to a phone The code is a modified versions of an example code from SparkFun, with the addition of the subscribe functions. It does include the SparkFunMicroOLED library.

#include "SparkFunMicroOLED/SparkFunMicroOLED.h"  // Include MicroOLED library
#include "math.h"
#include <string>
MicroOLED oled;

int buttonPin = D0;

float var;

String test=("var");
String voltage;
String ma100;
char volt[5];
String Gps;
char gps[25];
String Bat;
char bat[6];

void setup()
 {               
Serial.begin(9600);
  oled.begin();    // Initialize the OLED
  oled.clear(ALL); // Clear the display's internal memory
  oled.display();  // Display what's in the buffer (splashscreen)
  delay(1000);     // Delay 1000 ms
  randomSeed(analogRead(A0) + analogRead(A1));
  
  
  Particle.connect();
  Particle.subscribe("ma100", myHandler, MY_DEVICES);
  Particle.subscribe("Gps", myHandler1, MY_DEVICES);
  Particle.subscribe("%Bat", myHandler2, MY_DEVICES);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode( buttonPin , INPUT_PULLUP);
  
  
  //var=char(data);
  }
void myHandler(const char *event, const char *data)
{
    ma100=data;
   ma100.toCharArray(volt,5);

}
void myHandler1(const char *event, const char *data1)
 {
     Gps=data1;
     Gps.toCharArray(gps,25);
}

void myHandler2(const char *event, const char *data2)
 {
     Bat=data2;
     Bat.toCharArray(bat,6);
}





void loop()
{
  text();  
  setup();
    int buttonState = digitalRead( buttonPin );
     if( buttonState == LOW )
  {
 
    Particle.publish("run", gps ,PRIVATE);
  }
  
   
}
  
}

void text()
{
  oled.print("GPS Tracking Device");
  oled.display();
  oled.setFontType(0);  
  delay(2500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);     
  oled.setCursor(0, 0); 
  oled.print("GPS Coords");
  oled.display();
  delay(1500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);
  oled.setCursor(0, 0);
  oled.print(gps);
  oled.display();
  delay(2500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);     
  oled.setCursor(0, 0); 
  oled.print("Battery   Percent");
  oled.display();
  delay(1500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);
  oled.setCursor(0, 0);
  oled.print(bat);
  oled.display();
  delay(2500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);     
  oled.setCursor(0, 0); 
  oled.print("Particle  Voltage");
  oled.display();
  delay(1500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);     
  oled.setCursor(0, 0); 
  oled.print(volt);
  oled.display();
  delay(2500);

}


void printTitle(String title, int font)
{
  int middleX = oled.getLCDWidth() / 2;
  int middleY = oled.getLCDHeight() / 2;

  oled.clear(PAGE);
  oled.setFontType(font);
  oled.setCursor(middleX - (oled.getFontWidth() * (title.length()/2)),
                 middleY - (oled.getFontWidth() / 2));
  oled.print(title);
  oled.display();
  delay(1500);
  oled.clear(PAGE);
}

#include "AssetTracker/AssetTracker.h"


int transmittingData = 1;

long lastPublish = 0;

int delayMinutes = 1;

AssetTracker t = AssetTracker();

FuelGauge fuel;

void setup() {
    t.begin();
    t.gpsOn();
    Serial.begin(9600);
    
}

void loop() {
    t.updateGPS();
    
    

    if(millis()-lastPublish > delayMinutes*60*1000){
        lastPublish = millis();
        Particle.publish("ma100",+ String::format("%.2f",fuel.getVCell()), PRIVATE);
        Particle.publish("%Bat",+ String::format("%.2f",fuel.getSoC()), PRIVATE);
        

        Serial.println(t.preNMEA());
       
        if(t.gpsFix()){
           
            
            if(transmittingData){
                    Particle.publish("Gps", + String::format(t.readLatLon()), 60, PRIVATE);
                
            }
            Serial.println(t.readLatLon());
        }
    }
}

Credits

Alexander Barnhardt

1 project • 0 followers

Micah Koenigsberg

1 project • 0 followers

GPS Tracking Device

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Schematics

ThingSpeak: Voltage vs Time

ThingSpeak: Battery Percent vs Time

If This Than That Applets

GoogleDocs Records of Locations

Micro OLED Sketch

Micro OLED Sketch Image

Code

OLED Code

GPS Code

Credits

Alexander Barnhardt

Micah Koenigsberg

Comments

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GPS Tracking Device

GPS Tracking Device

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Schematics

ThingSpeak: Voltage vs Time

ThingSpeak: Battery Percent vs Time

If This Than That Applets

GoogleDocs Records of Locations

Micro OLED Sketch

Micro OLED Sketch Image

Code

OLED Code

GPS Code

Credits

Alexander Barnhardt

Micah Koenigsberg

Comments

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