For my 5th and final year in EEE at JKUAT, I was required to do a school project that accounted for two class units spread out over the two semesters of 2016/2017. The project I came up with is called OFFGRID MOBILE COMMUNICATION which the name suggests that communication can happen without a service provider network.
Brief Abstract
As communication is becoming widespread in Kenya, many people are opting for high-end smartphones that can do more than simple communication and support a variety of features. However, communication obstacles may arise due to several factors such as network congestion, deadzones within urban centers and extreme weather conditions. Let’s also not forget the dips in cell reception when we go to the rural countryside to visit our grandfolks on Christmas.
A way to mitigate this constraint in communication is completely abandoning the dependency to the service providers and creating a small network based on two available technologies Bluetooth 4.0 modules and RF Transceiver modules. Together these are enough to create a small area network (radius 1 – 1.8km).
Objectives
My objectives for this project include:
- Design and implement the internal circuitry of the device including the Bluetooth, microcontroller and RF transceiver modules which will allow the device to transmit, process and receive data.
- Design and implement the code to configure the Bluetooth, microcontroller and RF transceiver modules to perform as intended.
- Design and implement an android application user interface to allow users to connect and work with the off-grid communication device as intended.
Resources
My project will involve the use of an ATmega1284P microcontroller, a HM-10 Serial Bluetooth 4.0 module and a HC-12 RF Transceiver module.
I am using Atmel Studio to program my microcontroller (Newbiehack.com has great tutorials on this), KiCad, discussed here, to draw my schematics and eventually my PCB and Android Studio to write the mobile interface to use with the device.
As of now in my final semester already made strides with this project more posts on its progress will follow.
References
Some references I used in researching for this project including the communication industry in Kenya, other solutions, wireless technologies (Bluetooth, RF), antennas, microcontrollers, mobile app development can be found below:
[1] CA, “Quarterly Sector Statistics Report Fourth Quarter for The Financial Year 2015-2016 (April-June 2016)”, page 5.
[2] CA, “Quarterly Sector Statistics Report Fourth Quarter for The Financial Year 2015-2016 (April-June 2016)”, page 9.
[3] CA, “Quality of Service,”.
[4] CA, “Mobile operators Fail to Meet Quality of Service targets for the third year running,”.
[5] Abdiwahid Biriq. (2014, May. 16). “Is Safaricom short-changing its customers?”.
[6] Dave Aiello. (2004, Aug 13). “Mobile Carriers Ready “Cells on Wheels” in Case of Outages or Network Overloads.”.
[7] Chris Woodford. (2016, March 9). “Walkie-talkies.”.
[8] AARL. “What is Ham Radio?”.
[9] Chris Woodford. (2016, June 13). “How Does Bluetooth Work”.
[10] ATHLOS. “Bluetooth™”.
[11] Robin Heydon. “Bluetooth Low Energy: The Developer’s Handbook”. Prentice Hall, 2012, pp 1-7
[12] Tarun Agarwal “Block Diagram and Explanation of RF Transceivers.”.
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[13] antenna-theory.com. (2011) “The Monopole Antenna”.
[14] Louis E. Frenzel. (2005, Mar 31). “Printed-Circuit-Board Antennas”.
[15] Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. “Compact Integrated Antennas”. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc, 2015 pp 8-9
[16] CA. “Kenya Table of Frequency Allocations”. CA, 2008 pp 37-186
[17] Frank Duignan. “An Overview of Microcontrollers.”.
[18] Android Developers. “Bluetooth Low Energy”.