SmartCharger

Wildlife Protection Solutions builds a neat product used to monitor wildlife and detect threats such as poaching in real time using distributed cameras powered by solar power. They approached me to design a MPPT charger that would work with a variety of cameras and also have it's own LoRaWAN communication system so that they could also monitor the power systems, for example looking for issues with the solar panel or battery health.

The final system can provide up to 50 Watts, supports either Lead Acid or LiFePO4 batteries and provides 5V, 6V, 9V or 12V DC output for various cameras. Firmware was written for two on-board micro-controllers, one managing the solar charging system and one managing LoRaWAN communications.

In addition to the design I managed production of the first 100 units for the client.

I also wrote a utility program for Windows and OS X to allow initial provisioning and configuration of the charger in the field.