How to retrieve wind speed and GPS track from an RC boat?

Transform your VRC workouts into connected experiences

Imagine your traditional buoys equipped with anemometers that continuously measure the wind. Each RC boat has a GPS that sends its position, second by second. On land, a central station captures all this data, displays it in real time, and records it automatically.

👉 While sailing, you instantly follow the wind speed and the trajectory of your boats.

👉 After training, you replay each maneuver using the Replay function and analyze your performance.

To achieve this, you need 4 components:

Anemometer on buoys

One or more anemometers can be installed on conventional buoys. They regularly transmit their wind measurements to a receiver box located on land. This box centralizes and records all the data.

GPS on RC boats

Similarly, every RC boat can be equipped with a GPS. While sailing, positions are sent continuously (usually every second) to the receiver on land.

Receiver on land

The land-based receiver is the heart of the system. Equipped with a display and an SD card, it simultaneously receives data from the anemometers and GPS units and records them.

Visualization and Replay

The information can be displayed in real time on the receiver. It can also be exported for later analysis, allowing navigation to be replayed and studied in the form of a Replay.

The macro architecture of the solution is shown in the diagram below

What equipment for the ground receiver?

There are, of course, many options. Here we choose a 5-inch tablet from M5Stack under the reference Tab5 at $60 with a battery. It offers the following advantages:

• Good size touch screen to display data

• Built-in microSD card reader

• Based on an ESP32 that supports the ESPNow protocol, able to communicate over a distance of approximately 100 meters outdoors