| Author | Message | ||
     Jaredkuper |
A few friends of mine are working on a motorcycle tracking system for a class project (senior Electrical Engineering at Texas Tech University). The system is controlled by a Texas Instruments MSP430 series processor. An accelerometer detects movement of the bike when the system is armed. When triggered, the MSP activates a GPS board. After 60 seconds, the GPS is locked onto the signals and has a position, which it passes to the processor. The processor then uses a cellular modem to "call" the coordinates in. The coordinates can be accessed by an email sent to you, or saved on a website, or pretty much whatever you want. You could even have it text message you, "hey, your bike is leaving without you!" The system is low power and should work for quite a while on the motorcycle battery, and could even have a backup battery incorporated. It will be small enough to mount in many bikes, but not sure if the XB would have enough room or not. The parts list runs to about $200-400. Anyway, long story short: All the parts seem very feasible, most of them are working independently, and I can get a lot more details. The project is not complete, and no offense to them, I don't expect that it will be complete any time soon. If there are any electrical engineers out there who feel like working on this, or want some more info let me know, I could use a good summer side project, not to mention protecting my baby! | ||
| Buellgator |
Sounds like a good idea. | ||
| Spiderman |
I belive a simular product exists. Minus the cellular modem. You can even track your bikes movement via the internet. They tried to sell it to my rental dept last year. BUt if you can make it cheaper an better I say go for it. Did I mention the co. that was sellin it would charge a monthly fee kinda like on-star. PS Don't take this post the wrong way just a little info so you guys don't get hit with a suit or somethin. | ||
| Chainsaw |
Can ya'll tap into the Bank Angle Sensor (or something similar) and kill the motor while your at it? I think it would be cool to dial your bikes cell phone number and disable the darn thing. Just a thought... | ||
| Gonen60 |
I would guess most bikes are picked up, and put into a truck or van, so killing the engine would not do much good. If the tracker could not be easily shut off, that would be great. also, couldn't you just put a tracking chip on it, like they do for children and pets. very small and can be placed in one of a thousand places. | ||
| Chainsaw |
Good point Gonen. I believe the tracking chips are meant to be hand scanned with a wand by vets and police. I believe it's a subdermal ID tag, no tracking qualities. | ||
| Gonen60 |
you mean we can't lo-jack our wives ?...LOL | ||
| Jaredkuper |
Yeah, you could definately set it up to call the bike and have it disabled. As most bikes are stolen in a truck though it wouldn't do much good. There would have to be a monthly fee for this also, as it uses a cell phone. The fee would be totally between yourself and the phone company though. If you have the cell phones with a SIM card then you may be able to use a duplicate card and use your existing phone plan, or you could just add the phone to your existing plan rather than have a whole separate account. The great thing about this is that even if you can't recover anything, you'll have the address of wherever they store it before it goes under the wrench. Just post the address on this site and I'm sure we could get a posse together. | ||
| Pangalactic |
They could set it up with a prepaid cellular device....that would kill a monthly fee... | ||
| Stot |
What about a pager? these usually dont have a monthley charge but the call is premium. Course I aint seen a pager in about 1 eon and a yonk. Cya Stot | ||
| Jaredkuper |
Good idea, hadn't thought of the prepaid option. I like it! | ||
| Seanp |
Gonen - I bet there's some folks out there that if their wife was stolen, would just collect the insurance money instead of tracking them down... (Not me though! I love my wife! She's letting me buy motorcycles!) I'd pay good money for something like this. To spend $400 and get your $10000 bike back quickly and unharmed seems like a deal to me. Thinking about it, it doesn't seem like it should be all that difficult to make. I mean, I have a satellite phone, (courtesy of the US Army) that has a GPS built into it. You can get your position off the GPS and send it directly to another phone. The phone works through both satellite networks and regular cellular networks. And that satellite phone is about the same size as a small handset for a regular cordless phone in a house. All you'd have to do is add another chip that senses when the bike is being stolen, (it's moving but not turned on, the ignition's been busted, or you call the number directly and punch in a PIN or something if you come back to your parking spot and the bike's not there). Sound feasible? It could very easily be done in a car, since there's so much more room to work with and places to put an antenna. Wish I had the electrical knowledge to put it all together... | ||
| Pangalactic |
actually, many of the new nextel phones are GPS equipped, and as long as they are on you can track where they are and where they have been from a web terminal... If you live out west, they have boost prepaid (NEXTEL) and you could just hardwire that to your battery, mount it somewhere inconspicuous and it would last forever (theoreticaly). Buy the phone and a prepaid card, and Voila! edited by pangalactic on March 25, 2004 | ||
| Evaddave |
If someone picks up the bike and puts it into a van or box truck, there's a good chance the GPS won't be able to acquire a signal. It's a good idea though. I know there was some talk about having cell phone companies being able to provide locations for cell calls to 911. Maybe something along those lines could be used. The cell phone company should be able to narrow the call down to a particular tower or two. They might even be able to do that without having the phone place a call. | ||
| Pangalactic |
Nextel can triangulate phones between towers to 300 ft, without the GPS transmitter, just the phone signal... | ||
| Blublak |
Actually, any GSM phone can be located easily enough.. as a matter of fact, if you have the AMPS/DAMPS ID codex used by the phone, you can find it anywhere within it's network, since GSM systems are not universal, but basically one offs for each company, you only need to know the carrier and work it from there.. As for using TDMA/CDMA phones, that is a function of better software. If the company can keep your IDex better centralized within it's system then your calls should be clearer and you will have less drop out. So, triangulating within a cluster or better yet, between actual cells is used to determine distance and bearing for each of the 21 blips they are reading. That way hand offs and shakes are more seamless and your calls are that much better and efficiently handled.. Phew.. Don't ask how I know all this, but trust me, if they want to find you and your phone is on.. In todays' world.. they can. Later, | ||
| Jaredkuper |
Well that's just disappointing, as my cell phone was stolen three times (by the same guy) in two months. I asked the phone company each time if there was a way to track it, since I knew my phone had some sort of positioning system, but they told me there was nothing they could do at all. So much for customer service, eh? Jared | ||
| Pangalactic |
I had the same problem with AT&T when my phone was stolen. Swithced to Nextel, and they offer it on their website, so if you sign up for it, you can track your own phone, i beleive for free. |
