Hi Wildlab'ers,

Today is a new milestone for the Arribada team, who for the past 6 years have been working on open source satellite telemetry solutions for the WILDLABS Community using the Argos platform (kicked off by the legendary @ThomasGray when he worked for CLS, asking for an open source design back in 2018).

Using the STM32WL55 processor, we've managed to make available a small 2cm x 2cm transmitter, the Arribada SMD for only €50(!), yes, that's only £42 to talk to satellites in space. Better still, it's fully compatible with the new Kinéis constellation of nanosatellites, meaning for the first time your tiny telemetry tags can enjoy 15 minute global revisits (the same location is covered by a passing satellite every 15 mins), meaning that for marine mammals and basically any animal that surfaces for a very short period of time (sharks especially) you've got an excellent chance of getting a location.

Juvenile sea turtle tracking will also be much easier now, as the doppler location accuracy is much better thanks to the numbers of satellites picking up transmissions. This should mean GPS-less smaller devices can be made using the SMD module at a very low hardware cost.

Just as importantly, we've made it easier for developers to integrate the SMD into your own solutions and tags, making @Rob_Appleby and @shahselbe smile by also producing a Wing board, with the SMD transmitter pre-soldered on and all the connectors you need ready to go, or if you just want a Plug-and-Play solution, we created an Adafruit nRF52480 kit that works out of the box. Just add power and an antenna and you're off! 

Take a look at the SMD family of things here: https://arribada.org/arribada-smd/

Your friends at Arribada