LoRa Based GPS Asset Tracker

LoRa Based GPS Asset Tracker is a battery-powered tracking system that reports an asset's live position over a long-range LoRa radio link to a web dashboard, with no SIM card or data plan on the tracker itself. Fleet owners, college labs and site managers lose sight of bikes, vans and equipment the moment they leave the premises, and commercial trackers close that gap with GSM subscriptions and monthly costs. This project replaces the cellular leg with LoRa: a NEO-6M GPS module captures satellite fixes, an ESP32 packs the coordinates, and a Ra-02 LoRa module transmits them; a gateway kilometres away forwards every packet to a dashboard with live positions, route trails and geofence alerts. Because LoRa's chirp spread spectrum encodes each symbol as a linear frequency sweep, the receiver decodes signals below the noise floor — that processing gain stretches the link to kilometres on milliwatts, with the build staying within a student's reach: modules rather than chip-level RF design.

The project is scoped as a two-unit build — one mobile tracker node and one gateway-plus-dashboard receiver — which is exactly how a student demonstrates it in a viva: the node moves, the dashboard updates, and every hop of the chain can be pointed at and explained.

A full update cycle of the LoRa Based GPS Asset Tracker runs from satellite to screen in a few seconds. The NEO-6M GPS receiver locks the constellation and outputs NMEA sentences with latitude, longitude, speed and time. The ESP32 reads these over UART, packs device ID, coordinates, speed, satellite count and battery voltage into a compact payload, and hands it to the Ra-02 LoRa module over SPI. The module transmits on the 433 MHz ISM band using chirp spread spectrum; a second Ra-02 on the gateway, typically elevated with clear line of sight, receives it and forwards the payload over serial to the dashboard host. The dashboard moves the device marker, appends the packet to the trip log, checks every geofence polygon, and raises an alert on a boundary crossing. The tracker then sleeps until the next scheduled fix, and the cycle repeats every 30 seconds by design.

1. The NEO-6M GPS receiver locks the satellite constellation and outputs NMEA GGA/RMC sentences over UART (about 27 s cold start, datasheet typical).
2. The ESP32 parses the sentences, extracts latitude, longitude, speed, time and satellite count, and packs them with the device ID and battery voltage into a compact payload.
3. The Ra-02 LoRa module (SX1278) transmits the payload over SPI-driven chirp spread spectrum on the 433 MHz ISM band at spreading factor 7 — roughly 60 ms airtime (approximate).
4. A second Ra-02 module on the gateway receives the packet, and the gateway ESP32 forwards the decoded payload over serial/USB to the dashboard host.
5. The dashboard decodes the packet, moves the device marker on the map, appends it to the trip log with a timestamp, and updates the speed, battery, satellite and RSSI panels.
6. The new position is checked against every geofence polygon; an exit or entry fires an on-screen alert and a timestamped feed entry. The tracker sleeps in deep sleep until the next 30 s cycle.

Tech stack:

• ESP32-WROOM-32 (tracker + gateway firmware)
• u-blox NEO-6M GPS module (NMEA over UART)
• Ai-Thinker Ra-02 LoRa module (Semtech SX1278)
• LoRa chirp spread spectrum, 433 MHz ISM, SF7
• Single-file HTML/CSS/JavaScript dashboard
• Arduino IDE (firmware build)
• 0.96-inch OLED (I2C status display)
• 18650 Li-ion cell with protection and charging

The four capabilities that define this build are the live map dashboard, server-side geofence breach alerts, trip history with route trails, and a battery-friendly duty-cycled tracker node. The dashboard is the face of the project: every LoRa packet moves a marker on the map in near real time, with per-device panels showing speed, battery, satellite count, last fix and RSSI. Geofences are polygons drawn around the depot, campus or route, and the moment a tracker exits or re-enters one, the dashboard fires a visible alert and logs it in the alert feed with the device ID and direction. Trip history stores every packet with a timestamp, so a full route can be inspected or summarised as distance travelled per day. Underneath, the tracker node sleeps between fixes — waking on a timer, grabbing a GPS fix, transmitting one short LoRa packet and going back to deep sleep — which is what makes battery power practical.

• [Live map dashboard] Every uplinked packet moves the device marker on the map in near real time; per-device panels show speed, battery, satellite count, last fix and RSSI, with a recent-packets table and alert feed alongside.
• [Geofence breach alerts] Polygons drawn around the depot, campus or route are evaluated on every packet; a crossing fires an on-screen alert and writes a timestamped entry (device, direction, time) to the alert feed.
• [Trip history and route trails] All packets are logged with timestamps, so any device's trip draws itself as a trail on the map and summarises as distance travelled per day; the raw log is a plain CSV for the report.
• [Battery-friendly duty cycling] The node wakes on a timer, takes a GPS fix, transmits one short packet and returns to ESP32 deep sleep; with a 30 s uplink design target and a 3.7 V 18650 cell, multi-day operation is the design goal.
• [NEO-6M GPS fixes] The u-blox NEO-6M receiver (50 channels, 2.5 m CEP autonomous per datasheet) outputs NMEA sentences over UART; firmware parses GGA and RMC for position, speed and satellite count at a 1 Hz default rate.
• [LoRa long-range link] An Ai-Thinker Ra-02 module (Semtech SX1278, 433 MHz ISM band, sensitivity to −148 dBm and +20 dBm transmit per datasheet) carries packets point-to-point to the gateway at spreading factor 7, about 60 ms airtime per packet (approximate).
• [Local OLED status readout] A 0.96-inch OLED on the tracker shows fix status, satellite count and the last transmitted packet, so the node can be verified in the field without a laptop.

• Tracker node build: ESP32, NEO-6M GPS, Ra-02 LoRa, OLED, 18650 power — assembled and wired
• Gateway receiver build: second ESP32 + Ra-02 pair with serial link to the dashboard host
• Tracker and gateway firmware (Arduino IDE source, commented)
• Web dashboard (single HTML file) with live map, trip trails, geofence alerts and packet log
• Wiring diagram and antenna placement guide (spring antenna vertical, clear of metal; quarter-wave wire ≈ 17.3 cm at 433 MHz by physics)
• Component list with exact module part numbers
• Setup guide: gateway placement, geofence drawing, dashboard launch
• Project report PDF (architecture, LoRa link budget, duty-cycle design)
• PPT presentation for the final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (GPS NMEA parsing, chirp spread spectrum, link budget, deep sleep)