Building a "GPStracker-monitored cabledrum"

I currently work for Draka, a company that produces (power)cables. In autumn 2012 I visited a customer and we ended up talking about the problem of cabletheft. We eventually talked about the possibility of building a "GPS-protected cable drum".

In my opinion the biggest problem with GPStrackers is powerconsumption. You don't want to have to go out in the field to change the battery every 40 hours. But, depending on the variables set, 40-48 hours is the maximum battery life of small personal GPStrackers.... There are also more "hardcore industrial trackers" available. But these contain real big battery packs, are much bigger and more difficult to conceal. Oh yeah, they're also far more expensive. I discussed several options (reprogramming, undervolting, etc) with Geert Hanraads, a great hard and software engineer who works in our R&D department and he helped me out. We took the easiest option and attached a leadbattery to a small personal GPStracker using a modified usb powercable. This provided enough juice to power the tracker for roughly 5 weeks. We used a plastic drum which could easily be opened and closed (if you know how to) and put the modified tracker inside. We used some leftover cable to make our drum more attractive for the bad guys, who would hopefully then leave the other cables, the ones that shouldn't be stolen, alone.

Below are some pictures of the project and at the end my conclusion regarding "the ideal GPStracker". A lot of thanks goes to Geert for helping and building the drum!

Step 1: List of ingredients

1 - Personal GPStracker kit
1 - BIG battery
1 - Resistance
1 - Encasement
1 - Simcard (already in the tracker)

not on picture:
- A Cabledrum(!)
- A means of attaching the encasement to the drum
- Some screws, bolts, etc.

Step 2: Mixing the ingredients

1 - Cut the powercable from the GPS kit and add Resistance.
2 - Attach modified powercable to Battery.
3 - Attach Battery + modified powercable to Encasement.
4 - Drill hole in Encasement so powercable can stick out.
5 - Attach Encasement to Cabledrum.

Step 3: Just about ready

Attach the GPStracker to the Encasement with duct/PVC-tape.
Make sure you chose a position where it's easy to turn the tracker on/off.
Connect the GPStracker to the powercable.

Step 4: Waterproofing the tracker

Cover the Encasement and GPStracker in several layers of plastic bags.
Use duct tape for finishing up and to add that typical authentic touch.

Step 5: Making it look real

Nobody steals an empty cable drum (well at least not one of these plastic 
ones we used, because they make very bad tables/furniture (BTW for great 
ideas about furniture from cabledrums click here)).
So use some leftover cable to make the drum more attractive to steal.
Optional: Fill up the drum with empty plastic cups, bottles etc. to make 
it look more realistic.

Step 6: Remember which drum contains the GPS tracker!

Or can you see which one does?

Step 7: Go get the bad guys!

Place drum in field together with the other drums, but make sure you 
position it so that the bad guys take THIS drum, and not the ones 
without the GPStracker.....

FAQ: So??? Did you catch any bad guys?

No we did not.
But then again what are the odds?

I did learn a lot about the posibilities and limitations of GPStrackers though.

Which led me to the following conclusion:

The ideal GPStracker for protecting against cabletheft.

should be
- small
- waterproof
- easy to attach to a drum
- easy to hide inside a drum

should have
- very low energy consumption and/or
- an ability to charge itself (solarpanel)
- have a big battery

and also
- be triggered by motions/vibrations, e.g. when somebody is 
  trying to take cable from the drum instead of stealing the
  actual drum (an accelerometer should do the trick I suppose).
- have a (standard) geofence alert (if outside area, alert).
- be able to receive over the air updates about which (combinations
  of) variabels, such as time, location and motion should trigger 
  not only alarms but also "deepsleep"-mode (ultra low energy use) 
  and "RED ALERT"-mode (high energy use).
- have a sonic alarm to scare of thiefs. (which you of course should
  be able to turn of when using the cable for it's legitimate purpose
  (see previous point about variables).
- be able to receive over the air firmware updates. 

So especially because of the option for ota updates, I guess untill
there comes "something else", the best solution would be programming
a rooted smartphone in a special easy-to-attach,waterproof encasement
with extra battery and a solarpanel.

Or, to go all-out-nerd-style, build an Arduino based solution.
Which would take a lot of time per build, so probably not be the best 
solution after all, but since Arduino rocks, be cool anyway.

Or.... perhaps these devices are already on sale.
If you know of such a device, please send an email to:
erik.bakker@draka.com

Cheers!