University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Preliminary Design of Micro Power GPS Logger with Bluetooth Capabilities

University of Waterloo

Prepared By Vladimir Joukov ID 20309410 Userid vjoukov 4A January 2, 2013 Self-study

135 Brookmill Dr Thornhill, Ontario L4J 6L8 January 14, 2013 Manoj Sachdev, chair Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1 Dear Sir This report, entitled "Preliminary Design of Micro Power GPS Logger with Bluetooth Capabilities", was prepared for my 3A Work Report requirement. The purpose of this report is to fulfill the WKRPT 300 course. This report describes the design of a small low power Global Positioning System logger which can connect to a smartphone device through Bluetooth. This is a self-study report created because of my personal interest in the topic which rises from the desire to travel the world after graduation and having a detailed log of the path I took. I hereby confirm that I have received no further help other than what is mentioned above in writing this report. I also confirm this report has not been previously submitted for academic credit at this or any other academic institution.

Sincerely,

Vladimir Joukov ID 20309410

Contributions
This work-term report is not related to the work I did during my coop term but is a self-study report in a topic that deeply interests me. Recently many of my friends have graduated their four year bachelors degrees and decided to travel over the summer. Many went to Europe and walked though beautiful cities, visited museums and drank very expensive cappuccinos. Others preferred the more extreme South America which is famous for its low prices, nature, high altitude, and travelers diarrhea. Both groups took millions of pictures and couldnt wait to share them with jealous friends who had school during the summer. When I was talking to them about their trips it became apparent that as soon as they show a picture the experience of being there comes back and its as if they are reliving that moment they snapped the photo. One thing that was interesting is that while they were trying to remember the routes they took through the little streets of Venice or the twists and turns of the trek to Machu Picchu they were all having a hard time until there was a picture. My own graduation is coming up soon and I would like to see the world as well and have as much recollection of the experience as possible. This is when the idea of logging every step of your journey came to me, it seems that there must be a trigger to recall your experience and what better trigger than flying though the whole thing again. After looking on the web for already existing products I was surprised to find no small size GPS logger which would work for more than a day. This led me to work on the design presented in this report. I have been a microcontroller hobbyist for many years now and had the experience and desire to take on a project like this. Ive previously made a battery powered gift box with an LCD screen and a motion sensor which would wake up when someone was near and display a message and finally open on the day of their birthday. So I had the knowledge to analyze power consumption and work with devices in sleep mode. Another project Ive worked on was logging GPS coordinates onto an SD card to see the path I took during a flying lesson. That gave me the expertise in working with GPS and SD technologies. Looking at the power consumption of current components available there was no reason as to why a GPS logger should not function for a week without requiring a new battery so I decided to make this my next major project. I have begun developing the device at the beginning of last term and there is already much progress. At first I modified my previous GPS logger project to use a smaller battery and keep the microcontroller in sleep and SD card turned off between GPS data sentences. Technically that was enough to log a trip but I wanted to add functionality which would make the device a fully developed product which can compete with the ones available on the market. Because of this I came up with the idea of adding Bluetooth functionality to then interface the device with my smartphone which can show my iii

location, draw a path, and navigate. At the current stage in development I am in the process of putting all the different functionalities together. The next step is to create an application for the smartphone which can demo features such as navigation and overlaying a map with the logged trek. For the future I believe this idea can take off into a real product and I am considering creating a business proposal for a startup. After I have a fully working prototype I intend to take it to one of the many startup business advisors available for University of Waterloo students and discussing the feasibility of demoing the device to large companies.

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Summary
The main purpose of this report is to demonstrate a preliminary design of a very low power Global Positioning System (GPS) logger with Bluetooth capabilities. This report is intended as an overview of the technologies available to create such a device and the different applications it can be used in. The scope of this report is the reasoning behind creating the GPS logger, rough block diagram, and suggestions for different major components required. The circuit design, secondary components, and software implementation is outside the scope. The major points covered in this report are the block diagram of the main components required for the GPS logger and detailed discussion of each block presented. Throughout the report there is an emphasis on choosing low power components. Since the main topic is logging GPS signal a large part of the report focuses on GPS modules and how to select one for a specific application. Because of the low power criteria the new Bluetooth Low Energy technology is introduced, the sleep modes of all components are discussed, and an analysis of battery life is performed. This report shows that it is realistic to create a GPS logging device that will work without requiring recharging for up to a week and that such a device has many useful applications. Allowing different GPS modules to be used makes the design adaptable for a specific application. While there are already GPS loggers available none of them have these features and because of this the device will have a competitive advantage. Another improvement over existing products is the Bluetooth wireless communication module which allows the device to communicate with any smartphone or tablet. While the design of the product is completed, marketing analysis must be done to determine the target market and the manufacturing cost to establish if it is feasible to turn this into a commercial product. Furthermore this report only covers the major components and a very brief block diagram. A lot of details were not mentioned such as smaller components, performance characteristics, circuit diagram design, and manufacturing costs. These details must be discussed in the next design step.

Contents Contributions................................................................................................................................................ iii Summary ....................................................................................................................................................... v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. vii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................. viii 1. 2. 3. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Device Overview .................................................................................................................................. 2 GPS Modules ........................................................................................................................................ 3 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7. 4. GPS Background ........................................................................................................................... 3 Size................................................................................................................................................ 4 Update rate .................................................................................................................................... 4 Power Consumption ...................................................................................................................... 4 Number of Channels ..................................................................................................................... 5 Antenna Shape and Size................................................................................................................ 5 Accuracy ....................................................................................................................................... 5

Recommended Modules........................................................................................................................ 6 4.1. 4.2. Global Top PA6C Module ............................................................................................................ 6 GS407 Helical GPS Receiver ....................................................................................................... 7

5. 6.

Bluetooth 4.0 ......................................................................................................................................... 7 Microcontroller ..................................................................................................................................... 9 6.1. XMega128AU4 Controller ........................................................................................................... 9

7. 8. 9. 10.

SD Card............................................................................................................................................... 10 Battery ................................................................................................................................................. 10 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 12 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................... 13

References ................................................................................................................................................... 14

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List of Figures
Figure 1 General block diagram.................................................................................................................... 2 Figure 2 A tiny GPS module [1]. While being very small this new generation module from Global Top packs a lot of processing power. It is very low power but at the same time is capable of updating location ten times a second, has prediction of satellite positions to instantly fix, and uses an intelligent algorithm to lower power consumption when movement speed is low. It even provides internal memory to log up to two days of GPS data [2]. ............................................................................................................................. 4 Figure 3 Always Locate technology [2] .................................................................................................... 6 Figure 4 SL1206 Antenna radiation plots [3] ............................................................................................... 7 Figure 5 BLE112 module from Bluegiga Technologies [5] ......................................................................... 8

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List of Tables
Table 1 Power consumption of all required major components. ................................................................ 11

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1. Introduction
Every year thousands of people walk, run, bike, and drive countless miles to experience the world outside their work cubicle. During their journeys they take millions of pictures and pick up hundreds of souvenirs to later recall their experience. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but imagine that years later you could virtually fly through the whole journey once again step by step, mile by mile, in the exact route you took. This is where the presented device shines. The design presented here is a very small low power Global Positioning System (GPS) Logger which once turned on will log every step you take anywhere in the world. While there are many GPS loggers available on the market nothing is in the low power range which you can turn on and forget and will allow you to log long journeys without carrying tons of batteries or constantly having to recharge. Using specially selected components it can operate for close to a week. Logging is not the only features of this device, by adding new low power Bluetooth 4.0 module it can also aid in real time positioning useful for navigation. The big problem with many hand-held devices is that while they have all the processing and applications to perform navigation and draw beautiful maps due to the size constraint the GPS antenna has such low power it is often hard to get good signal inside a car. The device described can solve this problem by sending its good GPS information over Bluetooth to the smartphone which can do the processing and displaying. GPS is a fairly new technology that only recently has been integrated into commercial products; there are still countless applications to be explored. Recently the first prototype of this device took an introductory flying lesson on a small Cessna plane. GPS provides not only longitude and latitude but also fairly precise altitude and it was truly remarkable to see in 3D the exact flight path during the lesson. This is just one of many applications that are out there still to be discovered. By providing a small low power solution with Bluetooth capabilities which will either log or transmit many hours worth of GPS data there are many possibilities from re-living the hiking trail you recently walked and getting your bearings when your smartphone will not pick up a signal in the wilderness, to ambitious projects such as high altitude ballooning or flying a stunt plane.

2. Device Overview
This section first provides the overview of the GPS device design using a block diagram. It allows visualizing how all of the components are interconnected and justifies why all the components are needed. The the specific details and hardware choices for each of the separate blocks are discussed in following sections. All a simple GPS logger requires is the GPS module, a battery, and some memory to record the data onto. Unfortunately a device like that would not provide any flexibility in its functionality. The desire is to create a GPS logger that has enough extra peripherals to make it useful for many different applications. Another key design idea is to make some peripherals replaceable to cater for a specific application. To do any processing of the GPS data and forwarding it to the peripherals a microcontroller is necessary. Because many people in the world now have smartphones a Bluetooth module is added so the device can be interfaced with the phone wirelessly to either control specific device functions, or for retrieval of logged or live GPS information. For data storage SD card was chosen as it is a popular memory drive and allows for fast retrieval of stored logs without special drivers. Furthermore the idea was to make the device as universal as possible thus a USB controller was added so that when plugged into a PC the device will charge the battery similarly to a smartphone and appear as a flash drive displaying content of the SD card. The block diagram of the device is shown in the figure below.

GPS Module

USB Controller

Battery

Bluetooth 4.0 Module

Microcontroller

SD Card

Figure 1 General block diagram.

3. GPS Modules
By far the most important part of this project is the GPS module. While there are hundreds of GPS modules available on the market there are only a couple protocols they use to communicate their data. This factor allows writing software on the microcontroller that will work with any module connected. This is a key idea for this project which gives it an edge over competitors. If for example the device is being used as a logger on a long trip a low power GPS is used, if it is used in extreme weather conditions a GPS module with a high gain antenna is preferred. There are multiple GPS solutions on the market and this section first introduces the Global Positioning System and then discusses the pros and cons of different modules available on the market.

3.1. GPS Background

During the cold war the Russian government launched the first satellite into space called Sputnik. To make sure that the world would not think it is a hoax Sputnik emitted very easily detectable beeps at a certain frequency. Half ways around the world at Johns Hopkinss Applied Physics Laboratory two scientists were the first in the United Stated to listen to these beeps. By recording the timestamps and the small frequency deviations they were able to figure out the speed of the satellite and soon after that have mapped it orbit. By reversing the idea of finding a satellite position from known position on ground to figuring out the position on the ground from a known position of couple satellites the Global Positioning System was born. For a long time the GPS was strictly military and even to this day any GPS module has a kill-switch built in so they shut off above a certain speed and altitude in fear that it may be used in a long range missile. When in recent years GPS started entering the commercial market first into navigation and now into almost any smart device there were a few protocols established for how it will communicate to the controller. Today the most popular protocol supported by almost every module was made by National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) while this means that any module will provide the same format of data they are still widely different and have their own benefits and pitfalls which must be considered. The key differences are the size, update rate, power consumption, number of channels, antenna size and shape, and accuracy.

3.2. Size
With the introduction of GPS to smartphones the size of the modules has shrunk to a chip smaller than your thumbnail. The key consideration when looking at size is the fact that decreasing the size also makes the antenna smaller. The small antenna is the reason a smartphone often has trouble acquiring GPS location. The figure below shows a common cellphone GPS module compared to a coin.

Figure 2 A tiny GPS module [1]. While being very small this new generation module from Global Top packs a lot of processing power. It is very low power but at the same time is capable of updating location ten times a second, has prediction of satellite positions to instantly fix, and uses an intelligent algorithm to lower power consumption when movement speed is low. It even provides internal memory to log up to two days of GPS data [2].

3.3. Update rate

Update rate determines how often the GPS reports its location over serial interface using the NMEA protocol. The standard update rate is 1Hz which means one NMEA sentence will be sent per second, many commercially available modules now support 10Hz or even up to 25Hz update rate. It is important to consider the update rate based on the application, for walking or driving 1Hz is usually enough but for anything that quickly changes position and direction such as a remote controlled plane faster update rate is better [1].

3.4. Power Consumption

Calculating the position anywhere in the world based on few timestamps is not an easy task. GPS modules have to do a lot of number processing and this uses up quite a bit of power. Apart from this the

big power draw comes from the antenna amplifier. Usually a GPS with better antenna design will not need to greatly amplify the signal as it will contain less thermal noise and thus its power consumption will be lower [1].

3.5. Number of Channels

The number of channels determines the number of frequencies the module can check at once thus allowing it to faster locate satellites in view. Many more expensive modules advertise 50 or even 66 channels which appear impressive but the truth is that there are currently only 30 GPS satellites in orbit so the GPS companies are either looking ahead or using the number of channels as a marketing tool to appear better than their competitor. After powering on a 20 channel GPS module will lock onto the satellites in view in under a minute. Most modules on the market now have hot start feature, if the power from the module is not completely disconnected it will keep track of time and last known location which will allow it to figure out which satellites should be in view. With the hot stat feature it usually takes a module less than one second to get a fix [1].

3.6. Antenna Shape and Size

There are two main GPS antennas, Ceramic and Helical. Both types are presisely trimmed to a size proportional to the GPS L1 frequency of 1.57542Ghz. Presision when manufacturing the GPS antenna is absolutely crucial. The bigger the antenna the better the signal and the higher the cost. The more common type is a ceramic block antenna it requires less amplification and has a smaller size, the ceramic block must be facinig up for it to recieve any signal. The helical antenna is more expensive and requires greater gain amplifier which will draw more power. It does have a benefit in that it can pick up signal from sattelites at a much wider angle than the chip antenna this allows it to lock onto more sattelites and provides better accuracy. The figure below shows both kinds of antennas [1].

3.7. Accuracy
Most GPS modules today have a position accuracy of three meters and altitude accuracy within ten meters. Interesting new research has been done on using not only the time information provided by the sattelite but also the phase shift of the carrier wave. In theory this can produce devices with millimeter

accuracy. It will be a while untill these become commmercially available but the millitary likely already has this technology [1].

4. Recommended Modules
This secction recommends two different GPS modules and shows the technology advantages they provide for different applications. The first module is for logging large amounts of data and has novel power reduction technologies. the second has a helical antenna which allows it mainatain accuracy while not directly facing the sky.

4.1. Global Top PA6C Module

This is a newer version of the modules shown in Figure 2. It uses only twenty milliamps while tracking satellites which make it perfect for logging applications where the module has to remain on for extended periods of time. Despite using so little power the module packs quite a lot of features. It contains an embedded assist system for quick positioning EASY which predicts future satellite positions and stores those predictions into memory to use later if not enough information is received from the satellites. EASY allows for good performance indoor and in urban conditions [2].Another new technology the PA6C possesses is patented Always Locate Advance Power Periodic Mode. When Always Locate is turned on the GPS module can be configured to use significantly less power depending on the movement speed. The figure below shows this concept [2].

Figure 3 Always Locate technology [2]

This makes it perfect for activities such as hiking trips when the module needs to be tacking for long periods of time.

4.2. GS407 Helical GPS Receiver

This is a great module with a helical antenna, as mentioned before the helical antenna allows the GPS unit to not face straight up while still receiving strong signal. The antenna on this module is the SL1206 and its azimuth and elevation plots are given below. They show that even if the antenna is rotated and not facing the sky it still performs fairly well.

Figure 4 SL1206 Antenna radiation plots [3]

Unfortunately the helical antenna significantly reduces the power consumption and this module uses 75ma while tracking. This module is recommended for applications where the orientation of the module is Subject to change such as a remote controlled plane or when logging extreme activities like alpine skiing or paragliding.

5. Bluetooth 4.0
Bluetooth is a technology designed to exchange data over short distances and was originally used as a wireless alternative to the most common RS-232 serial communication. Today almost all smartphones or tablets have a Bluetooth module build it. Adding wireless communication between the device and a 7

smartphone opens up many possible applications. Most smartphones either do not have a GPS built in or the antenna is so small they often lose the signal and cannot fix onto any satellites. This GPS Logger solves that problem since it can forward the NMEA sentences from its GPS with a good antenna to the smartphone over Bluetooth. Another great benefit is that by storing maps on the handheld the logged data can be plotted real time. This can be great for a hiking or cycling applications where it is important to see your path and information such as average speed or altitude. The communication will also allow the device to be controlled from a handheld device for turning the device on and off and setting up logs. Apart from this it would be great to perform processing on the data. Since the GPS accuracy of only within three meters if the logged path was simply plotted it would look very noisy. A common way of doing this is the Kalman filter which minimizes the covariance of the state (latitude and longitude for GPS). The Kalman filter does need to perform matrix inversion and floating point operations which are costly for a tiny microcontroller thus by having Bluetooth the data can be sent to the handheld where an application processes it using the handhelds powerful CPU. Two years ago (2010) Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) was introduced with the release of Bluetooth 4.0 core specifications. This type of communication is specifically designed for short range devices with low data rates and is very energy efficient. Devices equipped with a Bluetooth 4.0 module can last for a year on a single coin cell battery [4]. This makes the new technology ideal for this project since there is a very low amount of data to transfer and saving power is a top priority. The IPhone 4S released in 2011 was the first smartphone to contain Bluetooth 4.0 in its specifications but since then most manufacturers jumped aboard and support the standard. As BLE becomes common place more and more modules come on to the market and their price is decreasing. A great module was recently released by Bluegiga Technologies who is a leader in short range wireless solutions. Their newest modules the BLE112 consumes only 400 Nano amperes while sleeping and and wakes up in less than a second ready to transmit or receive data. All of the Bluetooth modules available support a RS-232 interface and some an additional Serial Peripheral Interface. The BLE112 is shown below; its small size and great power saving capabilities make it a good choice for this project.

Figure 5 BLE112 module from Bluegiga Technologies [5]

6. Microcontroller
The microcontroller for this project is chosen based on the requirements it needs to satisfy due to the peripherals connected. The necessary features are two Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) busses for the GPS and Bluetooth modules and a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus to connect the device to the SD card. Another desired feature of a built in USB controller so no extra chips are necessary to implement the flash drive capability of the device, without the USB controller extra hardware would be required and the implementation to communicate between said hardware and the SD card through the microcontroller would be very complex. Another important feature for the microcontroller to have is low power consumption, for this reason a powerful processor similar to one found in a smart phone cannot be used as it will draw too much current. On the market there are many different microcontrollers with varying architectures and features. The two families which have models that satisfy all the feature requirements, are low priced, and very common are the Atmels AVR and Microchips PIC. The main difference is the architecture; the AVR maintains a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture while PIC follows Harvard architecture. RISC implies that most instructions executed will take exactly one clock cycle and allows the microcontroller to run at a slower speed. This is benefit as slower clock rate usually means less power consumption. The new models of AVR also have significant advances in power saving technology the recently introduced picoPower models are very desirable for this project. PicoPower turns off parts of the controller during sleep while maintaining clock source to others so it can quickly wake up on an interrupt [6]. Atmel also provides their Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and C compiler free of charge while the Microchip IDE costs a pretty penny and looks as if it was made a decade ago. Providing the tools for AVR development for free also lead to many hobbyists choosing the Atmel family over Microchip and in turn writing open source libraries which greatly speed up development. The most difficult parts of implementation to realize this project are the SD card interface and the USB driver. Luckily the open source AVR community provides great libraries for both. The Lightweight USB Framework for AVRs (LUFA) library contains all the low level code to set up the AVR for USB communication, it even contains a demo project where the AVR acts as a USB to SD converter. Because of the reasons mentioned above the Atmels AVR family was chosen.

6.1. XMega128AU4 Controller

The XMega128AU4 microcontroller from Atmel is part of their new XMega AVR family and was chosen for this project because it has all the necessary features and supports picoPower technology. This 9

controller has 128 kilobytes of programmable flash memory, up to five UART ports for communicating with the GPS and Bluetooth modules, two SPI interfaces to communicate with the SD card, and a full speed Universal Serial Bus (USB) for connecting with a computer. When this controller is in sleep mode it uses less than a micro ampere and it has the feature to wake up on a UART interrupt. This is a great feature because it allows keeping the controller sleeping most of the time while logging. Data is received from GPS of Bluetooth, this wakes up the controller and it will process the data accordingly either writing it to SD card or modifying settings based on the Bluetooth command and fall back asleep until next interrupt. The XMega also has many analog to digital converters and an internal one volt reference; these can be used to directly monitor the battery charge level without extra hardware [7].

7. SD Card
Using an SD card as storage memory is ideal since the user can easily take it out to retrieve the data at any computer, replace it if the card fills up, and many people already have one or more SD cards. The one disadvantage of using an SD card is the fact that it uses a lot of power when writing data. Many low end SD cards continue to use a lot of power even when not reading or writing but just idling. Due to this the SD card should be turned off between writing data. A good option is to use the microcontrollers memory to buffer few seconds of the GPS NMEA sentences and only then turn on the SD card for a short period to save all the buffered data. Another option is to use a card manufactured by SanDisk who have a patented technology which puts the card to sleep between write cycles [8].

8. Battery
One of the most important components for this project is the battery. It must have enough capacity for the logger to function for extensive periods of time. It must also be rechargeable so the user does not need to replace it often. Small size and lightweight are desirable features since this device is intended to be easily carried on trips. There are many popular rechargeable battery technologies based on different materials used in manufacturing the battery. The battery for this project needs high energy capacity and preferably large number of charge discharge cycles. The most popular technology on the market today is the Lithium-ion in which the lithium ions move from negative to positive electrodes when discharging. It provides a very

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high energy density and has no memory effect. The memory effect is a term used to refer to the tendency batteries have of losing their energy density with charge/discharge cycles. Finally single cell lithium-ion battery provides the potential difference between 2.7 and 4.23 volts discharged to charged respectively. This voltage is perfect since all the components of the device will require 3.3 volts and it implies the battery can be charged from 5 volt USB port found on any computer. If the battery voltage is not close to the components ratings low voltage drop regulator cannot be used and the regulator will waste a lot of power. To understand how high the charge density of the battery must be the power consumption of the device must be calculated. The table below provides power consumption of all mentioned devices in sleep and active modes. The assumption is that the GPS module is always on while the other devices can go to sleep between NMEA sentences which occur once a second, since the NMEA sentences are very short and both Bluetooth and SD card support very high data rate it is safe to assume that the device will not be awake for longer than 2ms per second. The values were obtained from device datasheets.
Table 1 Power consumption of all required major components.

Device Global Top PA6C Module BLE112 XMega128AU4 SD Card

Sleep mode consumption 16ma 400na 0.65ua 150ua

Active consumption 16ma 27ma 10ma 50ma

A common Lithium-ion AA form battery stores 3200mah worth of energy. Using a popular online battery life calculator from Oregon Embedded Development the approximate battery life of the device is 7.01 days. This means a user can go on a week-long hiking trip, attach this GPS logger to his backpack, turn it on once, and forget about it.

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9. Conclusion
This report is an excellent preliminary design of a very low power GPS logger with Bluetooth capabilities. It clearly identifies potential target market such as travellers who want to later relive their experience and with this device can recall the exact path they took or everyday commuters who can use this device to enhance their smartphones navigation abilities. The device introduces a novel aspect of supporting different GPS modules for different applications and in detail discusses selection of a GPS module. While many GPS loggers are already on the market, the idea of adding Bluetooth to a GPS logger is original and well justified due to the popularity of smartphones which support the technology and would benefit from wireless communication with the device. Another important conclusion is that it is indeed feasible to create such low power device that it will continuously log GPS data for a week. This is done by analyzing the power draw of major components in both sleep and active modes and calculating battery life based on assumption that a widely available rechargeable battery is used.

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10.Recommendations
The design introduced in this report provides an excellent starting point for creating this low power GPS logger with Bluetooth capabilities. It is recommended that all the additional components such as battery charger circuit, voltage regulator, and USB circuit, are selected based on their power consumption characteristics, cost, and feature selection. Since this GPS logger is likely to be subjected to extreme conditions for applications such as mountain hiking or high altitude ballooning the performance characteristics of all the components discussed in this report must be evaluated to make sure the device will still function in low or high temperatures. As mentioned in the introduction, there are already many GPS loggers on the market but none can continuously log for more than one to two days without requiring a recharging or a new battery. Market analysis is recommended to understand if the proposed device is desirable by the consumers. The other important aspect is cost. While the components introduced are very well suited for this device if it were to go into production their bulk cost plus and manufacturing costs need to be calculate. This is important to answer in order to understand how the design fairs compared to the competition and is the target population willing to pay that much for the logger.

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References
[1] Sparkfun. Sparkfun. [Online]. https://www.sparkfun.com/pages/GPS_Guide [2] GlobalTop, "FGPMMOPA6C GPS Standalone Module Datasheet," Tainan, 2011. [3] Sarantel, "SL1206 Active GPS Antenna Product Specification,". [4] Bluetooth Special Interest Group, "Bluetooth Core Specification Addendum 3 rev. 2," 2012. [5] Bluegiga, "BLE112 Preliniary Data Sheet," 2011. [6] Arne Martin Holberg, "Innovative Techniques for Extremely Low Power Consumption with 8-bit Microcontrollers," Tiller, 2006. [7] Atmel, "8/16-bit Atmel XMEGA Microcontroller," 2012. [8] SanDisk, "SanDisk MultiMediaCard and Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard Product Manual," Sunnyvale, 2005.

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