Preliminary Application of a Low-cost Smart Collar Developed for Wild Animal Tracking

Year 2022, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 35 - 39, 30.06.2022

Ahmet Furkan İmamoğlu , İnanç Taş

https://doi.org/10.33904/ejfe.1131931

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology has been used in many different fields for many years. In recent years, GPS technologies have started to be preferred along with telemetry method in the monitoring and tracking of wild animal. This technology has been widely used especially in developing collars for wild animal tracking. However, due to the high cost of such devices and limited user intervention, they are not commonly used by practitioners or researchers with limited budget. Today, many hardware-based platforms have been developed with the developing technology. The Arduino platform, one of the prominent ones with its technical features, has great advantages of having different sensors and hardware work on single device. Besides, it is possible to produce cost-effective devices using this platform. Within the scope of this study, an Arduino-based wild animal tracking device (FiT-SMART Collar 2.0) with GPS support and remote data transfer via GSM was produced. The produced device was preliminary tested with a vehicle in the city traffic of Bursa, Türkiye. According to the results, the accuracy of the tracking data provided by smart collar was within the acceptable range of 2-3 m. Besides, instant tracking data has been successfully received in the system application using the GSM data transfer system attached on the platform.

Keywords

Smart Collar, Arduino, Wild animal tracking, GSM, GPS.

References

• Bhatt, N. D., Balkumari, L., Kc, S.K., Rai, S., Bastakoti, J. 2019. GPS based Animal Tracking with SMS Alert. KEC Conference, May 26, Kantipur Engineering College, Dhapakhel Lalitpur. Nepal.
• Cagnacci, F., Boitani, L., Powell, R.A., Boyce. M.S. 2010. Animal ecology meets GPS-based radiotelemetry: a perfect storm of opportunities and challenges. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365:2157–2162.
• D’Eon, R. G., Delparte. D. 2005. Effects of radio-collar position and orientation on GPS radio-collar performance, and the implications of PDOP in data screening. Journal of Applied Ecology, 42:383-388.
• Dussault, C., Courtois, R., JOuellet, J., Huot, J. 1999. Evaluation of GPS telemetry collar performance for habitat studies in the boreal forest. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 27:965–972.
• Fahrig, L. 2007. Non‐optimal animal movement in human‐altered landscapes. Functional Ecology, 21(6): 1003-1015.
• Fischer, M., Parkins, K., Maizels, K., Sutherland, D.R., Allan, B.M., Coulson, G., Di Stefano, J. 2018. Biotelemetry marches on: A cost-effective GPS device for monitoring terrestrial wildlife. PLoS ONE, 13(7): e0199617.
• Frair, J. L., Fieberg, J., Hebblewhite, M., Cagnacci, F., DeCesare, N. J., Pedrotti, L. 2010. Resolving issues of imprecise and habitat-biased locations in ecological analyses using GPS telemetry data. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1550): 2187-2200.
• Gompper, M.E., Kays, R.W., Ray, J.C., Lapoint, S.D., Bogan, D.A., Cryan, J.R. 2006. A comparison of noninvasive techniques to survey carnivore communities in northeastern North America. Wildlife Soc. Bullt.34: 1142-1151.
• Gor, M., Vora, J., Tanwar, S., Tyagi, S., Kumar, N., Obaidat, M.S., Sadoun, B. 2017. GATA: GPS-Arduino based Tracking and Alarm system for protection of wildlife animals., International Conference on Computer, Information and Telecommunication Systems (CITS), 21-23 July, Dalian, China.
• Hebblewhite, M., Haydon, D.T. 2010. Distinguishing technology from biology: a critical review of the use of GPS telemetry data in ecology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1550):2303-2312.
• Jung, T.S., Hegel, T.M., Bentzen, T.W., Egli, K., Jessup, L., Kienzler, M., Tatsumi, K. 2018. Accuracy and performance of low-feature GPS collars deployed on bison Bison bison and caribou Rangifer tarandus. Wildlife Biology, 2018(1).
• Moen, R., Pastor, J., Cohen, Y., Schwartz, C.C. 1996. Effects of moose movement and habitat use on GPS collar performance. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 659-668.
• Montgomery, R.A., Roloff, G.J., Hoef, J.M.V., Millspaugh, J.J. 2010. Can we accurately characterize wildlife resource use when telemetry data are imprecise? The Journal of Wildlife Management, 74(8):1917-1925.
• Nathan, R., Getz, W.M., Revilla, E., Holyoak, M., Kadmon, R., Saltz, D., Smouse, P.E. 2008. A movement ecology paradigm for unifying organismal movement research. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105: 19052–19059.
• Rodgers, A.R., Rempel, R.S., Abraham, K.F. 1996. A GPS-based telemetry system. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 24(3):559-568.
• White, G.C., R.A. Garrott. 1990. Analysis of wildlife radio-tracking data. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.