Improved design and Implementation of
Personal Location Beacon
Mi Liao1, Guigen Nie1,2, Jing
Zhao1, and Xi He1
1 GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, Wuhan,
China
2 Luojia Laboratory, Wuhan, China
Email: miliao@whu.edu.cn
This letter improves the Personal
Location Beacon( PLB), designs and implements a prototype personal
maritime emergency radio beacon. Unlike the existing PLB, it is
compatible with the traditional global search and rescue system(
COSPAS-SARSAT) and BeiDou search and rescue system, the vital signs of
people monitoring and reporting functions. After the PLB transmits
distress information, the Beidou receiver works. The Beidou receiver
receives information from the Rescue Centre and controls whether the PLB
transmits the distress information again, reducing unnecessary
emissions, thereby reducing the average power consumption of the PLB and
extending the working time of the PLB. Measurements show that the
current is 79mA in the state of receiving Beidou information, and the
7000mAh 7.4 V lithium battery can send distress messages to COSPAS
Rescue Centre and Beidou Rescue Centre 200 times each, and the distress
message contains
the
vital signs of people in distress. The vital sign is the temperature
information. Ideally, the 7000mAh 7.4V
lithium battery can support the
continuous working time of the market for 48 hours.
Introduction:Cospas-Sarsat
is a satellite-based positioning system that provides accurate position
information data for persons in distress to national search-and-rescue
(SAR) authorities[1]. The
distress radio for personal use called PLBs( Personal Locator
Beacons)[2]. Currently, it is the most successful nonprofit
satellite search and rescue system[3]. But it also have limitations.
Literature [4] presented the shortage of the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite
system. LEOSAR space segment became an ageing component leading to a
reduced number of satellites having a SAR payload on-board, and it dose
not cover the earth poles. This causes latency in the broadcast of
distress beacon information that could reach up to four hours for
beacons located near the equator.
Therefore, some countries are now considering real-time retransmission
of beacon signals using geostationary satellites to eliminate satellite
waiting delays [5].
Short Message Communication (SMC) is one of the most feature services of
BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
(BDS)[6], which is unique from
other global navigation satellite system(GNSS). Search and rescue(SAR)
service is one of the major services provided by BDS-3 system[7].
Literature [8] applied integrated
BDS and GPS navigation system’s precision positioning and SMS( Short
Message Service) communication technology to vessel, and solve the
problem of vessel navigation, positioning, remote monitoring and
commanding. In order to solve the problems of not getting information in
time, poor command and incompletely progress while carrying out rescue
operations in complex urban environment or wild environment,
literature [9] implemented a
emergency rescue system by using 5G and BDS. Literature [10]
designed a system in dam safety monitoring based on BDS. The above
research enrich the application of BDS SMC SAR technology. The joint
application of BDS SAR system and COSPAS SAR system can make full use of
the advantage of COSPAS SAR system and make up for the shortcomings of
COSPAS SAR system. At the same time, human vital signs monitoring is
used for personal sea rescue market and transmitted to the monitoring
centre through the BDS SMC, which helps the command centre to better
control the search, rescue, classification and transfer of people in
distress.
Proposed PLB: As shown in Fig. 1, this letter introduces an
improved of PLB. It consists of the ultra low standby power circle
(which consists of manual switch,
water touch switch, reset circuit and switching circuit ), the DC-DC
converter, the power, the STM32F413 controller, the BeiDou RDSS module,
the RDSS antenna, the COSPAS-SARSAT transmitter( which consist of DDS
module, LNA and PA), the 406MHz antenna, the GNSS receiver( which
consist of the location system, the time synchronization system and the
MEMS system), the GNSS antenna, the life detect sensor, the LEDs, the
OLED, the SD card module and the cancel button.