ZigBee-GPS Tracking System for Rowing Races---IEEE2011

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ZigBee/GPS Tracking System for Rowing Races
Nuno D. Simões1 , João L. Gonçalves1 , Maria L. Caeiro1,2 , Miguel J. Boavida1, Filipe D. Cardoso 1,2
ESTSetúbal, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Setúbal, Portugal Instituto de Telecomunicações/Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal Email: {032345392, 060250024}@alunos.estsetubal.ips.pt; {luisa.caeiro, miguel.boavida, filipe.cardoso}@estsetubal.ips.pt
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Abstract — In this paper a ZigBee/GPS Tracking System for Rowing Races is presented. The system provides real-time monitoring of boat position. Potential applications includes, race monitoring, aided-training and safety systems. The system is composed of two main types of modules, Mobile Units equipped with a GPS receiver (in the boat), and a fixed one composed by the Central Unit and the Race Manager, located in the operations room. The communication between the Central and the Mobile units is provided by a point to multipoint ZigBee wireless network. At the current development stage a system prototype was developed and used for testing purposes. Preliminary tests, in order to make a first assessment of system functionalities, were performed in a simulated land environment and the obtained results were promising. GPS, ZigBee, Tracking, Rowing.

possible to share performance data between team members that are geographically apart, and the graphical interface helps to compare the performance in different runs. Finally, the use of this system as safety device may also be used by recreational rowers or tourist facilities that provide rowing boats for their clients. At sport level it is also important to note that a large number of rowing athletes of all ages go practicing alone, without couches or additional equipment besides their boat. This paper is organised as follows. The proposed system architecture is detailed in Section II. The data structure is detailed in Section III. Results from preliminary tests are presented in Section IV. Conclusions are drawn in Section V.

I. INTRODUCTION Rowing is a Sport that normally provides very beautiful images that illustrate the essence of Sport in respect to courage, resilience and team work. At an Olympic level, a Rowing competition takes place in a 2 km natural or artificial lake, and takes approximately 6 to 10 minutes depending on the type of boat [1]. Global Positioning System (GPS) based tracking was introduced in this Sport at Olympics, in order to provide additional information for television broadcasting [2], [3]. The system presented in this paper addresses a different perspective. A small, low budget, GPS tracking system that can be used in local rowing events, in training sessions, but also as a safety device for the athletes training all alone. The use of this system in an event makes possible for all the spectators to have a more interesting experience when attending an event. Normally, the spectators are located near the finishing line and have the opportunity to see the last 30 seconds of the race. With this system an information panel near the finishing line may continuously update boat positions providing a visual representation of the ongoing race without the need for a TV monitoring system. This information may also be available online representing an interesting source of information for journalists, sponsors and the public in general. As a training tool, one is especially interested in managing performance. With this system it is possible to store all the results obtained by an athlete or a team, showing their evolution and, identifying patterns in performance. The XML (eXtended Markup Language) based information, makes it

II. TRACKING SYSTEM DESCRIPTION The proposed ZigBee/GPS tracking system was developed with the main objective of real-time monitoring of boats in rowing races. For this purpose a point-to-multipoint ZigBee wireless network was implemented, therefore, allowing the communication between a Fixed Unit (FU) and Mobile Units (MUs) located in the boats. In this way, remote monitoring of boats position and speed during a race is possible without the need for visual line-of-sight. MUs are equipped with a GPS receiver, therefore, allowing to provide boats geographical coordinates during a race. Additionally, several functionalities have been added to the system. Among them one refers to the possibility of sending emergency alerts from a MU to the FU or, reversely sending relevant information from the FU to any given MU. This feature is particularly relevant from a training perspective, enabling “online coaching”, since the coach can remotely monitor the training practice of the athletes and send relevant information to any given boat. The system architecture is depicted in Figure 1. MUs, in the boats, are equipped with a GPS receiver, a ZigBee wireless module and a LCD interface. The FU is composed of a Race Manager (RM) application, running on a computer, and Central Unit (CU) that provides the ZigBee interface with the MUs. The RM was developed in order to allow the network control by the operator, therefore, allowing to control and configure the network, and to monitor the position of each MU on the boats. When operating in real-time tracking mode the RM application calls each device and orders it to send the acquired GPS data, recording it on a database, for future query.

The point-to-multipoint wireless network between the FU and the MUs is implemented with 869 MHz ZigBeee transceivers [4].

and management of race related information as well as recording of GPS data sent from MUs. The RM also contains all configuration information related to remote devices. In this way, the RM allows managing all rowing race data while allowing to send/receive relevant messages to, and from, MUs on boats. The Entity Manager (EM) is responsible for managing relationships between the various entities and information flows from the GUI, being responsible for data management and storage. All data is saved as XML data, therefore, allowing to easily access it for future use. Database entities/fields and corresponding relationships are illustrated in Figure 3. The entity Competition, is a collection of various Race entities with different Boat Classes at different Stages. All the information about a boat in a race, namely position (GPS coordinates) and time is stored in the entity Boat/Race. Information and characteristics of MUs and its association to a given boat is stored in the Mobile Units entity. The entity Boat/Rower enables the link between both Boat and Rower entities.
Mobile Units Boat/Rower
BR_Boat_ID BR_Rower_ID MU_ID MU_GPS MU_XBee_Address MU_XBee_Net MU_XBee_Avaliable

Stage
St_ID St_Name

Rower
Rower_ID Rower_Name Rower_Birthdate Rower_Nacionality Rower_Height

Boat
Boat_ID Boat_Class_ID

Boat/Race
BR_Boat_ID BR_Race_ID BR_Boat_Number BR_Position BR_Time BR_MU_ID BR_GPS_Start BR_GPS_Coord

Race
Race_ID Race_Comp_ID Race_St_ID Pro_Date Pro_Hour Pro_BC_ID Pro_GPS_Start Pro_GPS_End Pro_Distance Pro_Dist_Start

Competition
Comp_ID Comp_Name Comp_Place Comp_Start_Date Comp_End_Date

Figure 1. Tracking system architecture.

Boat Class
Class_ID Class_Name Class_Num_Rowers

A. Race Manager The RM is a computer application designed to behave like the "brain" of the system. This unit allows controlling the MUs, providing all the functionalities for remote configuration, data acquisition and recording, and race monitoring, Figure 2.

Figure 3. Database structure.

B. Central Unit The CU is the physical interface that allows the RM to communicate with MUs. The CU is a hardware device that is connected via the serial interface to a computer running the RM application. It is composed of several sub-blocks, among them one refers the microcontroller, multiplexing and demultiplexing, wireless module and voltage level converter, Figure 4.

Figure 2. Race manager (Insert new race window).

This application is basically composed by a database and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which enables the monitoring

Figure 4. Central Unit prototype for testing purposes.

The core of the CU is a microcontroller that manages all the devices operation. The tasks performed by this sub-block consist essentially in establishing the communication between the RM and the wireless module. Since the microcontroller has only one serial interface to be shared by two different sub-blocks, a multiplexing/demultiplexing scheme is used. It should be stressed that this approach allows a modular expansion when additional sub-blocks are needed to be inserted if a different application is targeted. In terms of hardware, the CU is composed of a PIC18F2550 microcontroller, and multiplexing/demultiplexing functions are performed by an IC4052 connected to an 868 MHZ ZigBee module, that provides the communication with the MUs. C. Mobile Unit The MU on the boat, can be remotely configured by the RM with data associated to a specific race, and provides to the RM the coordinates of the boat during a race. Moreover, it also allows sending information to rowers on certain events, e.g., a false start. From the transmission and data processing point of view the MU has a structure similar to the one for the CU, the main difference being the inclusion of a GPS receiver and a LCD interface. Additionally, each MU is equipped with an emergency button. When pressed, an emergency message is transmitted to the FU. The MU prototype used for testing purposes is illustrated in Figure 5.

III. DATA STRUCTURE The data frame structure used for the communication between the RM and the CU is presented in Figure 6. Encapsulation performed by the wireless ZigBee modules is not considered here.
4 –124 Bytes Data Field

Start Delimiter

Frame Length

Checksum

Figure 6.

Race Manager/Central Unit frame structure.

The frame structure is composed of a one byte start delimiter followed by two bytes which indicates the number of bytes in the Data Field. The frame structure ends with a one byte checksum field. The Data Field is composed of 4 to 124 bytes depending on the type of transmitted data. This data field can contain specific data, e.g., geographical GPS coordinates, or system specific commands or information. Three different classes of data frames are used for different purposes: (i) general use, (ii) local configuration of the wireless module, or (iii) remote configuration of MUs. The Data Field structure for general is composed of two bytes for frame identification, followed by eight bytes with the destination network address and n data bytes that depend on the function of the frame to send, Figure 7.

Figure 7. Data Field structure, general use.

Possible Data Bytes functions include: x x x x x x Activate MU; Request for GPS coordinates; Send data to LCD on MU; Race and boat configuration; General configuration functions; Request for GPS state.

Figure 5. Mobile Unit prototype for testing purposes.

The remote configuration Data Field structure consists of two bytes for frame identification, followed by 8 bytes with the destination network address of the MU, two bytes with the command instruction for the wireless module, and finally, a number of data bytes that depend on the function of the frame to send, as depicted in Figure 8.

The core microcontroller manages the operation of this device in a similar way as detailed for the CU. This module can be expanded in a modular way by including additional modules, if needed. The microcontroller is responsible for handling/processing requests from the CU. Among the various types of request that can be received, there is the one for the GPS coordinates.

Figure 8. Data field structure, remote configuration.

Possible Data Bytes functions include: x x Transmission power management; Parameterisation of retransmission policies.

The structure of local configuration frames is similar to the one for remote configuration, exception made to the destination network address that is not needed, since local configuration refers to the wireless module of the CU that is physically connected to de RM where the command is originated. IV. PRELIMINARY RESULTS

V. CONCLUSIONS The ZigBee/GPS tracking system for rowing races, presented in this paper aims at providing the required functionalities that associated to wireless communication capabilities will allow real-time monitoring of rowing races. Moreover, the implemented system provides two way communications between the CU and MUs in the boats, therefore, allowing to send relevant information to the rowers in the boat as well as receiving information from the boat, e.g., emergency signals. Since the wireless infrastructure is completely autonomous, being based on a ZigBee point to multi-point network, it can be deployed anytime and anywhere without any especial pre-requisites. Globally, the key objective was achieved, and the test results in a simulated scenario (non-real rowing race conditions) are promising. Both hardware devices, the MU and the CU, are designed to be modular, therefore, being possible to adapt other wireless technologies and other sensing devices if needed. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the Portuguese Rowing Federation for their support in the development of this work. REFERENCES
[1] [2] Oficial World Rowing website, http://www.worldrowing.com, Oct. 2010. K. Zhang, R. Deakin, R. Grenfell, Y. Li, J. Zhang, W. Cameron and D. Silcock, “GNSS for sports – sailing and rowing perspectives”, GNSS 2004, − The 2004 International Symposium on GNSS/GPS, Sydney, Australia, Sep. 2004. S. Ilarri, E. Mena, A. Illarramendi and G, Marcos, “A Location-Aware System for Monitoring Sport Events”, MoMM 2010 – The 8th International Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing and Multimedia, Paris, France, Nov. 2010. ZigBee Alliance, ZigBee Specification, http://www.zigbee.org, June 2005. Oficial GPS website, http://www.gps.gov, Oct. 2010.

At the current developing phase the ZigBee/GPS tracking system for rowing races was in a preliminary prototype development phase, hence, hardware and software functionalities are being tested in non-real racing environments. Future developments include the implementation and testing of new hardware prototypes in real rowing race conditions. With the aim to make a primary assessment a land testing environment was used to properly access system functionality. It should be stressed that the obtained results can be naturally affected by different propagation conditions when performing tests in real rowing race scenarios.

[3]

[4] [5] Figure 9. Test scenario.

The test scenario was a road close to the coast. The MU was mounted on a vehicle travelling from point A to B (2 km distance, red line) at an average speed of 50 km/h, higher than the one usually found in rowing races (the average speed of a boat in a race was about 24 km/h). The transmitted power was set to 500 mW Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power. From the coverage point of view 98.2% of geographical data information sent from the MU was received at the FU. It must be stressed that these results are significantly dependent on the propagation conditions in different environments, nevertheless, from these preliminary results, the proposed system behaves like expected. Additional tests will be performed in real rowing race scenarios in order to properly assess system specifications.

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