Wifi Road Trip Logger (mbed Challenge Entry)

Page last updated 24 Sep 2010, by Daniel Garden. 5 replies Battery, compass, DotNet, Google Maps, GPS, LCD, mbed, RTC, SD Card, SQL, wireless

Aim

To create an in-car journey logger which wirelessly syncs with a home server when you park in your driveway and turn off the engine. Once on the server the user will be able to view their journey data (positional data on Google maps, graphs of 3 axis G etc), have the ablility to edit/trim the data and then save the data.

Hardware

  • mbed (of course!)
  • GPS
  • Accelerometer
  • Compass
  • SD Card Reader (expanded storage for long journeys)
  • Coin Cell for RTC
  • Li-Ion Battery with Charging Circuit (To allow the unit to sync while the engine is off)
  • LCD, joystick, buttons etc (for navigation on the unit)
  • WiFly Module

mbed Software

  • Interaction with all sensors
  • SD card file system
  • Text LCD and Buttons
  • RTC Setting
  • Wireless Networking
  • Detecting battery operation
Server Side Software
  • Windows application written in .Net Framework
  • Receive logged data
  • Save to local file system and/or database (sql/mysql)
  • Integration with Google maps for route visualisation (GMap)
  • Charting Library for Numerical Data (Zedgraph)
  • Export/Save Functionality
Possible Extensions
  • The Unit should be small enough to carry. Therefore it may be useful for hikers, skiers etc. Battery life and unit robustness is obviously a concern here.
  • Integration with social networking (FaceBook and Twitter). Similar to iMapMyRun.
  • Obviously CAN integration would be good for detailed car information logging.
  • Possible GSM integration for real time data logging. Could be too expensive due to cellular data charges.
  • iPhone/Android apps. Would require an online presence for storage. Could be possible to use smart phone for real time information (via a bluetooth module) while in the car or use the smartphone's 3G connection to upload data.

Flow Diagram

5 comments

Daniel Garden
24 Sep 2010 . Edited: 24 Sep 2010

Updated with Flow Diagram

ohararp@...
29 Sep 2010

Daniel, this is a very interesting project.  I am definitely interested to see how you get on with things!

Jay Davey
16 Jun 2011

Hello Daniel,

 

I hope your project is going well - it looks exciting!  Have you managed to get the WiFly module working with your mbed yet?  I'm wanting to hook up a WiFly module to the mbed myself and would be interested in a library or some example code you might have that I could look at.

 

Cheers,

 

Jay

Daniel Garden
17 Jun 2011

Hi Jay,

Unfortunately I have been in the process of moving house in the last 6 months so havent been able to spend any time on this. As I recall I managed to get the wifly module to connect to my router but couldn't ping anything outside my own network.

You're comment has spurred me to reopen this project, so I will endevour to get something out with the wifly code in it (though I'm fairly noob so might be rubbish code :-) ).

Daniel

Asim Tanwir
15 Oct 2018

can you share its code?

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