Mountain Climber IoT Safety Tracking System

Problem Statement

Mountain climbers often venture into deep valleys and dense forests where cellular coverage is non-existent. Current solutions rely on Satellite Phones or Garmin InReach devices, which require $400+ in hardware and $15-$65/month in subscription fees, making them inaccessible to amateur climbers.

Core Objectives

We aim to build a completely free-to-operate, off-grid mesh network using 433MHz LoRa technology. It provides real-time GPS tracking, heart-rate monitoring, and two-way SOS messaging between climbers and basecamp without relying on any external infrastructure.

System Architecture

How data flows from the climber's wrist to the basecamp dashboard entirely off-grid.

Wristband → Mobile App → Climber Node → Repeater → Basecamp

Smart GPS Filtering

Rejects GPS jitter, teleport jumps, and low-satellite anomalies. Mobile phone GPS acts as an automatic fallback.

Accelerated SOS

Dedicated hardware panic button immediately triggers 1-second interval telemetry with maximum transmission priority.

Vitals Monitoring

Continuous heart rate monitoring via a custom ESP32-H2 BLE wearable, relayed straight to the rescue dashboard.

Two-Way Messaging

Send and receive critical text messages between basecamp and the mobile app via the LoRa hardware bridge.

Mesh Networking

Autonomous repeater nodes extend signal over mountain ridges using smart TTL-limited multi-hop routing.

Firmware OTA

The companion app fetches the latest secure firmware from our cloud portal and flashes it to the hardware via Bluetooth.

Hardware Design

Rugged IoT nodes designed for extreme alpine environments.

Climber Hub

Wristband

Repeater

Basecamp

Software Suite & Portal

A full-stack ecosystem linking the hardware to the cloud and rescue teams.

Rescue Dashboard (Flask + Leaflet)

A localized Python application running on the Rescue Coordinator's laptop. It reads raw LoRa telemetry over Serial, parsing GPS coordinates and plotting live climber positions onto an offline-capable Leaflet map. Handles SOS alerts and two-way messaging.

Companion App (Flutter)

A cross-platform mobile app that connects to the climber's hardware via Bluetooth. Provides an interactive UI for sending text messages, viewing connection status, syncing health vitals, and executing OTA firmware updates.

Summit Gear Portal

A modern commercial web portal built with Next.js, Tailwind, and Supabase. It serves as the e-commerce storefront for purchasing Summit Tracker devices, managing user registrations, and securely distributing the latest OTA firmware updates.

Testing & Results

Validating the system in real-world scenarios.

LoRa Range Testing

Testing line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight communication distances using various spreading factors and antennas.

Sensor Validation

Verifying the accuracy of the MAX30102 heart rate sensor and NEO-6M GPS module under different conditions.

Project Budget

Estimated hardware cost breakdown for one complete system (1 Basecamp, 1 Repeater, 1 Climber, 1 Wristband).

Component	Quantity	Unit Cost (LKR)	Total Cost (LKR)
ESP32 Development Board	4	1,800	7,200
SX1278 LoRa Module (433MHz)	3	2,500	7,500
NEO-6M GPS Module	1	2,200	2,200
MAX30102 Heart Rate Sensor	1	1,200	1,200
Li-Po Batteries (18650) & Modules	4	1,500	6,000
Enclosures & Miscellaneous	1	3,000	3,000
Total Estimated Budget:			27,100 LKR

The Team

Group 23 • CO328 / 3YP • Dept. of Computer Engineering, UoP

Sahan Jayasundara

E/21/198

Prabash Rathnayaka

E/21/328

Pasan Sandeep

E/21/353

Academic Supervision

Dr. Isuru Nawinne

Ms. Yashodha Vimukthi

Department of Computer Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya