We are building very small autonomous boats and need help and advice. Here are the basics:
We need to transmit data sampled at 100 kHz from a sensor.
We need to receive signals that control two batteries that power two propulsion devices.
We need to receive and send signals reliably within one mile.
We have read a lot about receivers and transmitters but would like advice on what specific products would be best. Open to collaboration with potential funding if located in Boston.
I recently found an Arduino mod called Moteino, supplied by LowPowerLabs (Google it Up). The prices for most of their offerings are between $20 and $30. They are selling some dandy little Arduinos Atmel 328's with built in transceivers, and their top end unit puts out 1 watt, into about a -120 dbm sensitivity receiver. In my experience, that ought to be reliable for a 1 mile data link, assuming you remain mostly line-of-sight. Once you involve obstacles, range calculations can get a lot tougher.
I haven't used them, but the Xbee S1 Pro is very popular, is said to be very easy to set up and use, and people claim achieving 1 mile line of sight range.
The boat is about 3 feet long and we will cary 2 Watt-hours of battery power, mainly for propulsion. So we do not have significantly challenging size/weight/power considerations.
