HorusBinary_Tracker

4FSK HorusBinary V1 and V2 compatible HAB tracker for SX1278 and Arduino Pro mini

Description

HorusBinary_Tracker is a sketch for tracking High Altitude Balloons using a SX127x radio chip and an Arduino Pro Mini or compatible. It will transmit telemetry-data packages in HorusBinary 4FSK v1 and v2 format. Note that this tracker is still very much experimental.

Decoding

The packages can be decoded and uploaded using a SSB receiver and software such as Horusbinary GUI and uploaded to the HabHub tracker

• Horusbinary Gui: https://github.com/projecthorus/horus-gui
• Habhub tracking page: https://tracker.habhub.org/
• horusdemodlib: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki

Code used

The radio related basecode for this sketch was taken from the horusbinary_radiolib project.

• See: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusbinary_radiolib

Prerequisites

To use this tracker in a balloon, you need to request your own Payload ID. For that refer to: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/blob/master/payload_id_list.txt

You will also need to set up a Habitat Payload Document, so that the payload telemetry appears on the HabHub tracker. Refer to: http://habitat.habhub.org/genpayload/

Hardware needed

To run this, you need the following hardware:

• 1 x Arduino Pro Mini - 3.3v (or compatible Arduino board)
• 1 x SX1278 LoRa chip (or compatible LoRa chip. Basically it will work with all sx127x series and Hope RFM9x chips)
• 1 x ATGM336H GPS or any UBlox or compatible GPS device like a NEO6 or NEO8. I recommend the ATGM336H GPS module.

Libraries needed

You need the following libraries to compile this sketch:

• https://github.com/jgromes/RadioLib (Radiolib, use v5.5.0 or earlier if you have an Arduino Pro Mini and you want to use 4FSK Horusbinary V2. This is necessary because of memory constraints)
• https://github.com/mikalhart/TinyGPSPlus (tinyGPS++)

settings.h

Download the code and unzip in a folder with the name horusbinary_tracker. Load horusbinary_tracker.ino in your Arduino IDE. The tracker can be programmed by changing the values in settings.h. Instructions are also in there.

uBlox GPS modules

Note that currently setting different flightmodes in uBlox GPS modules is not supported. This could cause GPS failures above 18km when using uBlox GPS modules. I recommend using the ATGM336H GPS modules.

And as always, use at your own risk.

Have Fun!

Roel.