Marine safety research

A traceable life jacket for small-scale fishermen

The Department of Marine Science and Technology at IPB University, Indonesia, has developed a LoRa-based long-range traceable life jacket system to enhance the safety of small-scale fishermen.

It is a new development in marine safety, and Thinger.io is part of it: the research project uses the platform to receive, store and display the position of every life jacket in real time.

The problem

Locating fishermen during a sea emergency

The system addresses a critical need: tracking the locations of fishermen during sea emergencies.

It relies on LoRa, a technology that allows long-distance communication of up to 15 km, so the coordinates of the fishermen are reliably transmitted and monitored.

Drawing of a blue life jacket with an electronics box on the chest, and the box enlarged: 13 cm wide, 8 cm high and 7 cm deep, holding a microcontroller board, a radio module and a GPS module
The life jacket design: the electronics box sits on the chest of the jacket.

Research utility

What the system brings to fishermen and rescuers

Fishermen safety

An effective tracking solution to swiftly locate fishermen during emergencies, significantly reducing the mortality associated with fishing accidents.

Remote monitoring

The Thinger.io platform transmits and displays the coordinates in real time, from any device connected to the internet.

Efficient and durable

Long battery life and a reliable signal, with the performance maintained over long distances and under challenging conditions.

Key results

Almost 13 km of range and six hours of battery

What the tests of the transmitter showed.

12.983 km
effective transmission range
with consistent RSSI values
5.99 h
of continuous operation for the transmitter
time for rescue operations

The LoRa link achieved effective transmission up to 12.983 km with consistent RSSI values, and the transmitter ran for up to 5.99 hours of continuous operation, ample time for a rescue operation. On the receiving side, the Thinger.io platform provides live map views and data logging, which makes the monitoring easier to follow.

Top: the orange and black life jacket seen from the back and on a mannequin. Bottom: the open electronics box, labelled powerbank, power switch, Ebyte E22, ESP8266, SOS switch and NEO-M8M
System design results of the life jacket (a) and of its electronics box (b).

The hardware

Transmitter (life jacket)
ESP8266Ebyte E22 LoRaNEO-M8M GPS
Power and controls
PowerbankPower switchSOS switch
Electronics box
13 × 8 × 7 cm
Receiving station
ESP32 on WiFi, uploading to Thinger.io

As labelled in the figures of the publication.

On Thinger.io

How Thinger.io is used

The platform gives the research a user-friendly interface for real-time data visualization and monitoring.

Real-time data transmission

The GPS module of the life jacket sends its coordinates through the LoRa module to the receiving station. There, an ESP32 microcontroller connected to the internet over WiFi uploads the data to the Thinger.io cloud platform.

Data buckets

All the raw data recorded by the life jacket is stored and displayed in data buckets on Thinger.io, and researchers can download it in .csv format for detailed analysis.

Live mapping

The live map shows the real-time location of each life jacket. Following its movement live is crucial during a rescue operation, as long as the jacket keeps transmitting.

Dashboard customization

Researchers customize dashboards to present the data in different formats, with charts and real-time updates that make it easy to interpret and support decisions during an emergency.
The Thinger.io console showing the data of a bucket named Koordinat: a table with date, DataRSSI, latitude and longitude
The data bucket in the Thinger.io web console: every reading with its date, RSSI, latitude and longitude, ready to export.
Three map widgets of a Thinger.io dashboard, each with the life jacket marker at a different point of the coastline
The live map in the Thinger.io web view: the marker follows the life jacket along the coast.

Conclusions

LoRa suits open water, where nothing stands in the way

The study used a LoRa-based long-range tracked life jacket instrument with a GPS module to obtain and transmit coordinate positions. The results show that the RSSI weakens with distance and with obstructions such as trees, which suggests LoRa suits marine areas without surface obstacles.

The LoRa module reached a maximum distance of 12,983 meters. Future research aims to develop smaller instruments with custom antennas that keep the same transmission capability.

Read the full study

The design of the life jacket, the range tests and the Thinger.io setup, as published by IPB University.

Read the full publicationExplore dashboards and maps