Existing systems for wildlife monitoring focus either on acquir- ing the location of animals via GPS or detecting their proximity via wireless communication; the integration of the two, remark- ably increasing the biological value of the data gathered, is hitherto unexplored. We offer this integration as our first contribution, em- bodied by our WILDSCOPE system whose key functionality is geo- referenced proximity detection of an animal to others or to land- marks. However, to be truly useful to biologists, the in-field moni- toring system must be complemented by two key elements, largely neglected by the literature and constituting our other contributions: i) a model exposing the tradeoffs between accuracy and lifetime, enabling biologists to determine the configuration best suited to their needs, a task complicated by the rich set of on-board devices (GPS, low-power radio, GSM modem) whose activation depends strongly on the biological questions and target species at hand; ii) a validation in controlled experiments that, by eliciting the relation- ship between proximity detection, the distance at which it reliably occurs, and the location acquisition, provides the cornerstone for the biologists’ analysis of wildlife behavior. We test WILDSCOPE in real-world experimental setups and deployments with different degrees of control, ascertaining the platform accuracy w.r.t. ground truth and comparing against a commercial proximity logger.
Geo-referenced Proximity Detection of Wildlife with WildScope: Design and Characterization
Picco, Gian Pietro;Murphy, Amy Lynn;
2015-01-01
Abstract
Existing systems for wildlife monitoring focus either on acquir- ing the location of animals via GPS or detecting their proximity via wireless communication; the integration of the two, remark- ably increasing the biological value of the data gathered, is hitherto unexplored. We offer this integration as our first contribution, em- bodied by our WILDSCOPE system whose key functionality is geo- referenced proximity detection of an animal to others or to land- marks. However, to be truly useful to biologists, the in-field moni- toring system must be complemented by two key elements, largely neglected by the literature and constituting our other contributions: i) a model exposing the tradeoffs between accuracy and lifetime, enabling biologists to determine the configuration best suited to their needs, a task complicated by the rich set of on-board devices (GPS, low-power radio, GSM modem) whose activation depends strongly on the biological questions and target species at hand; ii) a validation in controlled experiments that, by eliciting the relation- ship between proximity detection, the distance at which it reliably occurs, and the location acquisition, provides the cornerstone for the biologists’ analysis of wildlife behavior. We test WILDSCOPE in real-world experimental setups and deployments with different degrees of control, ascertaining the platform accuracy w.r.t. ground truth and comparing against a commercial proximity logger.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
