"Distance Alert", looking for inspiration for project.

[thinkfat]

I have a project on my mind that I'm looking for inspiration for.

The background of it is my son. He was born with chromosomal anomaly, Trisomy 21, aka "Down Syndrome". He's eight years old now but due to his condition he's quite a bit different from "standard issue" kids of the same age. He tends to get lost in his own world quite a bit, which is sometimes stressful especially when we're out and about in places where it's difficult to keep an eye on him. He tends to just wander about and get lost and is then unable to find us or ask for help. Think mall or grocery store. I have another kid (6y) and keeping track of them both is a challenge.

There are parents who put they kids on a leash out of desperation, which is a pragmatic approach but I would like our "bond" to be a bit more subtle. So I would like to make a "distance alert".

The idea is to have two transceiver boxes that "ping" each other every couple of seconds, and when they cannot hear each other any more, an audible alarm would sound from both. I would be carrying one of the boxes, my son the other one. When he gets out of range, the alarm from my box would alert me and the sound from his box would allow me to track where he went. 

The range should be no more than 10 meters. The RF frequency should be high enough to allow for small antennas yet at the same time be a manageable task to develop with hobby-grade equipment. 2.4 GHz ISM band would be suitable, I think. Battery autonomy should be a couple of hours from a full charge. The total size should make it wearable, maybe with a wristband or on a belt.

I can pretty much cover all of the topics, except for the RF platform.

I'm guessing something like a TI CC1352P could be used, but maybe there is something simpler?

[MK14]

You could consider the esp (esp8266/esp32) range of devices. If their range is sufficient.

Interestingly, for this application. is, the latest/newer ones (possibly not released yet and/or delayed by chip shortages), have a new range finder feature (time of flight). Which uses the speed of light, to detect the exact distance between the units (if I remember/understand it correctly).

EDIT:
Example mentioning it, trying to measure exactly 10 metres (like you, by coincidence), mentioned later in the posts:

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/issues/5059

[DrG]

I would suggest that you evaluate a BLE beacon and a phone app as the receiver. Look into RSSI, which you would need to specifically evaluate programmatically.

I am not saying that this approach will absolutely work for you, but I think it is worth investigating because the hardware and software are out there and relatively cheap. Battery life would not be a problem.

Some searching, including; RSSI, ble beacon, programmable advertising interval and so on will give you a good idea of usability.

Let us know how this project progresses - ok?

[thinkfat]

I would suggest that you evaluate a BLE beacon and a phone app as the receiver. Look into RSSI, which you would need to specifically evaluate programmatically.

I am not saying that this approach will absolutely work for you, but I think it is worth investigating because the hardware and software are out there and relatively cheap. Battery life would not be a problem.

Some searching, including; RSSI, ble beacon, programmable advertising interval and so on will give you a good idea of usability.

Let us know how this project progresses - ok?

Thanks for the suggestion. My use case would involve both sides being aware of the maximum distance violation, though. So both boxes need to transmit and also receive. But a BLE beacon could still be used.

The 10m distance doesn't need to be exact. It is a sensible value that allows a good degree of personal freedom for my son and at the same time peace of mind for me because I should still be able to see him and hear the alert from his box.

The solution can not be too simple, as both boxes need to sound the alert as soon as one of them loses contact. So, when one of them doesn't receive the transmission from its partner any more, it would change it's own signal from "I can hear you" to "I cannot hear you". This should counter asymmetric transmit/receive scenarios.

I will keep this thread alive, though when I start the actual development I will likely create a new thread.

[jpanhalt]

User on-the-fly programmable GPS might be a better option.  See: Invisible Fence.  Of course, you would not use a shock.

My best friend in elementary school had a slightly younger brother with Trisomy 21.  We were all great friends.  His brother used to visit me frequently and unannounced on his own.  That was no problem for me, of course, but it involved him crossing a busy street in LA.  Everyone worried about that.  Good luck is finding a solution.

[thinkfat]

User on-the-fly programmable GPS might be a better option.  See: Invisible Fence.  Of course, you would not use a shock.

My best friend in elementary school had a slightly younger brother with Trisomy 21.  We were all great friends.  His brother used to visit me frequently and unannounced on his own.  That was no problem for me, of course, but it involved him crossing a busy street in LA.  Everyone worried about that.  Good luck is finding a solution.

Thanks for the suggestion. The use case is that both of us are roaming. Both would therefore need to transmit their position to establish the fence. Using GPS sounds like adding needless complexity.

[jpanhalt]

Coordinates are easily converted to line-of-sight distance apart.  Maybe a little more math than signal strength, but much more robust.

[thinkfat]

Coordinates are easily converted to line-of-sight distance apart.  Maybe a little more math than signal strength, but much more robust.

The distance calculation may be more robust indeed, but as I said, we might be in a mall without GPS coverage. I need the system to be autonomous. Also, I don't need precisely 10m maximum distance. If the alert comes up at 7 or 12 meters that's also fine. Actually, if it's a crowded, confusing location it's a plus if the alert comes on at a smaller distance. A weak'ish point-to-point link is likely the best choice.

[RoGeorge]

WiFi range is rather large.  My guess is you may want to test more detection methods first, before committing to a proprietary design that fits in a wristband.

Probably a Bluetooth device would fit better for that range.  Bluetooth range is rather small, and you may use mobile phones for testing.  Even a player and a paired Bluetooth headphones might be enough.  You can listen to music/audiobooks from a mobile phone used as a player and wear by the kid, while you will wear a single headphone/headset paired with the playing phone.

As an extra advantage, Bluetooth headphones with A2DP (I know this from a pair a Sennheiser I have with A2DP) will start to have choppy sound quality before loosing the link, so you will be warned in advance, and the range is about right for an application like yours.

I don't now if normal Bluetooth used in a hands-free headsets (usually without A2DP) are acting the same way, or if they just suddenly loose the connection.

[jpanhalt]

Signal strength in a mall is no more reliable than a "smart phone" which gives GPS.  That's just theory, of course.  I avoid malls as i don't like being run over with shopping carts by women glued to their cell phones.   In the US, they open at 10AM, I am never there a minute later.

[xmo]

Anything RF is going to have different range depending on the environment.

You might consider some sort of RFID tag like those used for inventory control.  There are several systems with different ranges.  At the 'parent' end, a microcontroller could trigger the reader to 'ping' for the tag at preset intervals.  A missed ping would engage a re-try protocol.  After so many failed attempts, the controller would alert the parent and a small radio transmitter could send an alert back to a simple receiver at the user end.

[MK14]

I have a project on my mind that I'm looking for inspiration for.

If you don't mind me thinking out loud (and out of the box).

These days, you can buy very cheap, and very small, mobile phones. Which are considerably smaller, than the usual mobile phones. Sort of domino sized, which could easily clip onto a belt clip, or similar.

It would have most/all of the required features, already built into it. Rechargeable battery, case, GPS as final last resource of tracking where they managed to run off to, after 10 minutes of searching.
Accelerometers and compass, for estimating where they have moved to (direction and distance).
Can be phoned up, to find out, where they managed to get to, if wi-fi and/or Bluetooth signals, out of range.

Then it would be a matter of creating the software, or using existing app(s) and/or git-hub and other resources.

You could even make it ring to talk to the child and/or people near-by.

Speaker already built in.

[DrG]

I would suggest that you evaluate a BLE beacon and a phone app as the receiver. Look into RSSI, which you would need to specifically evaluate programmatically.

I am not saying that this approach will absolutely work for you, but I think it is worth investigating because the hardware and software are out there and relatively cheap. Battery life would not be a problem.

Some searching, including; RSSI, ble beacon, programmable advertising interval and so on will give you a good idea of usability.

Let us know how this project progresses - ok?

Thanks for the suggestion. My use case would involve both sides being aware of the maximum distance violation, though. So both boxes need to transmit and also receive. But a BLE beacon could still be used.

The 10m distance doesn't need to be exact. It is a sensible value that allows a good degree of personal freedom for my son and at the same time peace of mind for me because I should still be able to see him and hear the alert from his box.

The solution can not be too simple, as both boxes need to sound the alert as soon as one of them loses contact. So, when one of them doesn't receive the transmission from its partner any more, it would change it's own signal from "I can hear you" to "I cannot hear you". This should counter asymmetric transmit/receive scenarios.

I will keep this thread alive, though when I start the actual development I will likely create a new thread.

Hmmm food for thought and a juicy problem. I don't manufacture or sell ble beacons. I have used them but have never tried to use RSSI for distance - it seems like it can be useful in non signal loss cases. But as an exercise, I wonder how you might go about evaluating suitability for the problem.

Let's say the device consists of a BLE beacon transmitter and an ESP32 receiver. Additionally, the ESP32 can run the alarm functions. So, in theory, you have one segment addressed, i.e., each device has to have a transmitter and a receiver.

The beacon sends a brief transmission (let's say a millisecond or so) at some interval. That interval can be programmed - let's say you use  a 100 ms interval.

The esp32 is mostly scanning and scanning for all ble activity and then parses what it found and looks for the other guys beacon transmission. That part is easy because of the information in the advertisement, which easily includes a unique identifier and normally some other stuff (like rssi). The good thing for this problem is that there is no real standard in that there are usually some fields that you can manipulate - so, for example, this is how beacons can transmit temperature - the just stick the value in the field.

But, you want:

both boxes need to sound the alert as soon as one of them loses contact.

Well on your end, when you can't receive a beacon after a couple of scans (let's say 15 seconds), you can sound an alarm that you can hear. You can also change your advertising packet to reflect that you can't 'see' your son. If your son's unit has NOT lost reception of your unit, he can have a different alarm (one lost signal) and vice versa. Ok, so far so good.

What happens when both signals are lost? Both unit start alarming - so far, so good.

Beacons can have a range that exceeds your 10 m - so far so good. This allows your device to have a comfort zone and an alerting zone and a caution zone. You can take multiple readings before determining that an alarm has occurred.

Batteries - always an issue. Not so much for the beacon but the ESP32 is a bit of a hog but probably not insurmountable because you say:

Battery autonomy should be a couple of hours from a full charge.

Belt wearable is no problem with the battery probably being the largest part.

But what about how good rssi will be for distance? That is a big one. As I recall, in the heyday of advertising beacons, zones were setup to determine which advertisement (in this case an actual market advertisement) would be received/displayed - in the case of inside one large building, they probably could determine which junk stand you were closest to, but you are doing something different.

You could evaluate one beacon and one esp32 receiver and a battery for about $25 I would guess. That's important because it would first have to work well in no-loss situations, like an open area. Then advance to more complicated areas with walls and beams and so on.

You do have the benefit of recent work, not just in beacons but in patient tracking (for hospital and dementia centers) and even pandemic-inspired social distance detection (although you want the inverse, it is still relevant).

Don't know. It's a good problem.

[thinkfat]

Currently looking at different platform options.

TI CC2640, STM32WB and obviously there should be something from Nordic as well. I think a BLE beacon is generally good idea, but maybe I can do something with ToF over BLE, might be better than just RSSI, if I can pull it off. GPS is pretty much out of the picture for me. Too power hungry and only useful under open sky conditions. Also, it'd need a quite sizeable antenna.

But there are also a number of ready-made BLE modules that have a SPI or UART interface, maybe it's going to be one of those if they can do what I need.

[DrG]

Your design/construction skills may exceed mine for sure. I would not bother getting a BLE (like a Microchip BM70 or similar) component that I would then have to interface with a CPU. Not when the ESP32 is around and so easily available and programmable. I have also used a Linkit  7697, not terribly popular, but feasible. Then there are the Arduino NANO 33 IOT and MKR WiFi 1010, each of which have BLE capability and are easy to use and also have some battery options considerations. The 33 IoT (ceramic resonator) is only about $15-$20 as I recall.

As far as a BLE beacon, I have only played with one of these https://www.hackster.io/bigboystoys13/diymall-bluetooth-beacon-getting-started-656c6b and I do have a few others hanging around (on the virtual To-Do list).

Improving on RSSI outside of GPS would be an accomplishment that I would like to learn about. I have been thinking about this within the context of the (now old) luggage tags, which are supposed to tell you when your luggage is being stolen (or arrives on the conveyor, I suppose) and perhaps need to update my thinking to whatever that Apple tag [edit Air tag as @ shocked posted while I was typing this] is that I see articles about where they are used to stalk people

BTW: I doubt this would interest you, but I would like to get one of these to play with for no other reason that it looks like fun <-- that is the mentality that fills my drawers with bread-boarded projects that never get to the finished stage.

https://www.amazon.com/Location-Tracker-Bluetooth-Temperature-Developer/dp/B07HJ6N67N/ref=sr_1_12?crid=1JCZH20037AGB&keywords=ble+beacons&qid=1640299166&sprefix=ble+beacons%2Caps%2C60&sr=8-12

[ogden]

I hate to disappoint, but all that RSSI stuff will work reliably in open field only where you can locate your kid with your eyes. As soon as there are reflections or obstructions - simple radio signal strength approach most likely will give way too much false alarms to render system useless.

[DrG]

I hate to disappoint, but all that RSSI stuff will work reliably in open field only where you can locate your kid with your eyes. As soon as there are reflections or obstructions - simple radio signal strength approach most likely will give way too much false alarms to render system useless.

I can't speak for the OP, but you are not disappointing me as I have experienced the interruption of BLE beacon signals when interfacing solar beacons to an ESP32. Obviously, *some* kinds of barriers are going to prevent reception of the advertisement containing the RSSI field - that is understood and it is why you stating as much is not particularly disappointing. It has also been my experience that some obstructions are tolerable, e.g., I can read the beacons from a location when the beacon is not in the same room and another is outside and so on - it depends on the material and the extent of disruption. Clearly, it is not just line-of-sight reception.

As I hinted at, it may be possible to program your way to mitigating this problem (to some degree) by establishing a criterion before alarming, e.g., waiting some length of time of no signal (or RSSI-indicated out of zone). This would mitigate the effects of moving temporarily behind a steel column, for example. Since there is an assumption that there is no intention to specifically avoid detection, the approach is worth investigating - unless you can suggest another and much better approach - that becomes the challenge, the crux of the biscuit

[thinkfat]

I hate to disappoint, but all that RSSI stuff will work reliably in open field only where you can locate your kid with your eyes. As soon as there are reflections or obstructions - simple radio signal strength approach most likely will give way too much false alarms to render system useless.

I get that. But a potentially exploitable side effect is that the range is going to be smaller in complex environments where it's also easier to lose sight of the kid. It might actually work in my favor.

[ogden]

I get that. But a potentially exploitable side effect is that the range is going to be smaller in complex environments where it's also easier to lose sight of the kid. It might actually work in my favor.

Ok. Try something like: https://www.apple.com/airtag/. There's more: https://expertworldtravel.com/best-smart-luggage-trackers/

[Neomys Sapiens]

I hate to disappoint, but all that RSSI stuff will work reliably in open field only where you can locate your kid with your eyes. As soon as there are reflections or obstructions - simple radio signal strength approach most likely will give way too much false alarms to render system useless.

I get that. But a potentially exploitable side effect is that the range is going to be smaller in complex environments where it's also easier to lose sight of the kid. It might actually work in my favor.

You should not bet on that. I can easily imagine settings where parts of the store furniture or articles presented form a resonator and make deviations to the other side by a factor of ten!

[thinkfat]

Okay. I think I will have to prototype something to evaluate conceptual feasibility. In order to get some results rapidly, ESP32 seems to be the right experimental platform. I will order some and then see if I can get something up and running quickly. BTW, I found out that u-blox has some modules based on the ESP32 platform, the NINA series. But bare ESP32 is more versatile.

[MK14]

You can get ESP32 units, already built into watch strap cased versions, at amazingly low prices. Such as around $17. There are multiple suppliers, including EU (I think). I've forgotten the EU one I was planning to use.

Here is an example:
https://www.waveshare.com/m5stickc-watch-kit.htm

But, the Later S2 (ESP32-S2, https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32-s2 ) and probably later, 'new' ESP32 devices have more features, such as time of flight (which may or may not, help you).
I.e. ESP-S2's (newish), have ToF (I strongly think), and perhaps other new ones, such as ESP-S3, also have it, or even more.

There may even be child sized watch strapped versions (I'm not sure, if that applies to ESP32 or not, e.g. Micro-bit BBC kits do them, which also have a rf device built in, but they are not ESP32 ones).

Many features built into those $17 (approx) modules, such as battery, display, switches, mic, multi axis movement sensors, etc.

Powered by ESP32 module, supports WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2
0.96" true color LCD, 80×160 pixels
6-axis IMU, with 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis accelerometer
Digital mini high SNR microphone
Onboard button, IR transmitter, and LED, for human-machine interaction
Power management chip, for battery charging/discharging management
80mAh Li-po battery, allows short term operation
USB Type-C port, for power input, battery charging, or debugging
Onboard expansion interface, supports external sensors
Supports MicroPython, Arduino, and UIFlow (graphic programming) development
Small form factor, comes with watch strap and mount holder, wearable
Comes with development resources and manual (SDK and tutorials)

[MK14]

The new time-of-flight ones and new ESP32 versions, I've wanted myself (for a wearable ESP32 project, not ToF), for a period of time. But because they are new and/or chip shortages/delays, I have been unable to find any stock of them (and/or not with suppliers I wanted to use), when I last tried, a while ago.

If I remember right, the watch strapped versions (there are different ones, some at a higher price), don't do time of flight, but can be available for sale, when I last looked (some time ago).

There is a growing list of things I want to buy, but can't, because of component shortages. I will just have to wait.

[NiHaoMike]

There's a pair of boards intended to solve that exact problem.

It's open source for those who want to make their own version of it:
https://github.com/DFRobot/DFResources/tree/master/KittyFlower

[thinkfat]

Yep.