Ok I am new to arduino, and have a need for a system to track the locations of my animals within a 26-acre area.
I'm envisaging a system where I would set up either a local RF triangulation system or a local GPS network (has to be a self-contained system) ... either way works similarly.
a) The animals (mostly goats, cats) will carry a small unit on their collar. As small as possible for the cats.
b) Three transmitters at the corners of the property would be required to give me the location of each collar unit in terms of signal strength.
c) I also need to receive a rough location (direction, distance) of the collar if it wandered outside the property, by at least 500m, 1000m range would be nice.
d) Each collar (of about 10) to send a ping back to a laptop every minute to keep a record of where the units have been.
e) A hand held unit to work much the same as the three transmitters, but also receive the data from those three systems and display it to me wherever I am within that area. Also capable of giving a general direction and distance all by itself (to a range of at least 500m, preferably 1000m) if I am searching outside the range of the main system.
f) when I select one collar at once to track it from the hand held unit, I need it to send that collar a ping every second and to receive a prompt reply giving me the location.
The ground is slightly undulating, very small hills and hollows, and quite a few trees.
The accuracy doesn't have to be great, I don't need a pinpoint, anywhere within say 10m is fine, and I understand that trees and other interference will throw it off to some extent.
It would be great if I could get this system to show the locations as dots on a map ... but maybe that is a more complex upgrade for later on, initially I can work with it just giving me a signal strength for the collar as a number from each transmitter.
So, what would be the best way of going about this? How feasible is it? what are my problems likely to be? What modules would I need?
Any suggestions appreciated ...