Prototype of a dual-band radio unit

Abstract: Surveillance and control have come a long way in the last years. Every new mobile phone, most cars, and smartwatches have a global positioning system tracking device built into it. This is just one of the technologies used in order to track and follow. Today it is hard to go anywhere without there being some sort of way of finding you. The art of finding has been around for a long time and one company that have taken the tracking aspect to the next step is Followit. For over 40 years they have built different types of satellite and radio transmitters to keep track of everything from small animals like hares and dogs to big elephants. They also got tracking solutions for vehicles like boats, cars, trucks and excavators. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a radio transmitter which can transmit on both the very-high-frequency and ultra-high-frequency band which is better than the last unit used by Followit. While the current solution being the same the last 20 years, a new product will improve in almost every way. Studies by Followit suggest that a new version can save up to 30% energy than the last one. This will result in a longer lifetime for the product. Going away from component selection to achieve the desired sending frequency to have a version that can be adjusted directly in a computer program is also desired. By using this advanced radio sending on two bands at the same time can be accomplished, before only one frequency was available at each board. Inclusion of an inertial measurement unit and real-time clock makes this a more advanced and versatile product. The thesis includes a first printed circuit board prototype and one final design which is ready to produce by the production team. To ensure that the development process proceeds as planned in following steps, thorough testing is done both in hardware and in software. Further programming is left for the developers at hand. The results of this work is a four-layer circuit board that is 25x15 mm in size and holds components on both sides. All but one component is tested and works as intended on the board. The system is programmed to run a simple code which tests the different systems and components. To test the wireless radio transmissions a small radio pulse is sent out which can be captured by a receiver. A first simple casing is done to enclose both the circuit board and battery as a complete system.