Specs

Materials and Ratings of Scout Components

Description	Material	Rating
All metal hardware (bolts, inserts, bail)	SAE 316L marine grade stainless steel
Buoy float	368 kg / m3 syntactic foam	350 meters
Beacon	Aluminum, Schedule 80 PVC	450 meters
Buoy operating temperatures		-20°C - 65°C
Beacon operating temperature		-20°C - 80°C
GPS horizontal position accuracy		2.5 meters
GPS time to first fix		29 seconds
Message time to send		2-5 minutes
Message transmit power		350mA avg
Batteries (x4)	Samsung 30Q 18360	12,000mAh

Message payload and format

The beacon sends messages that are parsed by the Scout app. An example of the text content of the message is:

PK101;lat:3750.5119,NS:N,lon:12216.5280,EW:W,utc:194031.00,batt:3.74,int:10,sl:0,st:0

That message contains the following information.

PK101;lat:{Latitude in NMEA format},NS:{N|S},lon:{Longitude},EW:{E|W},utc:{utc in NMEA},
batt:{voltage},int:{interval_mins},sl:{time_mins},st:{status or mode}

• PK101 denotes the type and format of message used in our system

• interval (int): confirms the current sending interval in minutes

• sleep (int}: sleep time in minutes

• status (st): indicates for what reason the message has been send

  • 0: normal message on schedule (on set schedule)

  • 1: first message after power on (immediately)

  • 2: retry off schedule (on set +10, +20, + 30 minutes, new scheduled message will supersede this and end this sequence)

  • 3: configuration change received and applied (immediately after receiving config change request, afterwards +10, +20, +30, or next successful scheduled message)

  • 4: error parsing incoming messages or requested config settings out of bound (immediately after receiving config change request, afterwards +10, +20, +30, or next successful scheduled message)

In addition to the status information, all messages will contain the full set of location information as well as the set schedule.