System for Automated Radio Tracking of Animals in the Field

野外动物自动无线电跟踪系统

• 批准号: 9731002
• 负责人: Ronald Larkin
• 金额: $ 67.71万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-03-15 至 2005-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9731002&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: System; Automated; Radio; Tracking; Animals

The project will develop a flexible instrument for conducting field studies of animals. An array of towers (at least two) permits measurement of XY locations of miniature radio transmitters, providing nearly continuous data on dozens of subjects simultaneously if necessary. In suitable habitat, accuracy of direction finding by each tower is comparable with present labor-intensive techniques widely used by observers on foot or in vehicles or aircraft. The system has no moving pans and operates with off-the-shelf or slightly modified radio transmitters of the kind commonly employed in research on wildlife.Design goals include high data availability; modularity of software and hardware; inclusion of autocalibration, environmental data, stares reporting, and security features; and able to be configured on scales from small study plots to 500-km arrays of towers. Use of some existing equipment will permit rapid prototyping of the front end, which in turn will promote robust, user-friendly interfaces. This is important, because nearly bulletproof operation will be necessary for such an appliance to be accepted and properly employed by field biologists. Field testing of the instrument will be done in collaboration with ongoing projects run by biologist colleagues.Availability of such an instrument will (1) reduce the cost of many studies; (2) greatly (by orders of magnitude, if desired) increase the rate and daily coverage of data gathering; (3) permit critical investigations that are logistically or technically infeasible without automated collection and real-time display of data, and (4) provide high availability and flexibility to gather telemetered information from radio transmitters, alert the investigators to significant events, and coordinate with concurrent data from other instruments. Critical investigations include research fundamental to ecology and conservation biology, investigations of endangered species or their surrogates, studies of problem species in human-dominated habitats, and investigations of disease transmittal and wildlife rehabilitation.

该项目将开发一种灵活的工具来进行动物实地研究。塔阵列（至少两个）允许测量微型无线电发射器的 XY 位置，如有必要，可同时提供数十个对象的近乎连续的数据。在合适的栖息地，每个塔的测向精度与目前徒步、车辆或飞机观察者广泛使用的劳动密集型技术相当。该系统没有移动盘，并使用现成的或稍微修改过的野生动物研究中常用的无线电发射器进行操作。设计目标包括高数据可用性；软件和硬件的模块化；包括自动校准、环境数据、凝视报告和安全功能；并且能够进行从小规模研究地块到 500 公里塔阵列的规模配置。使用一些现有设备将允许快速构建前端原型，这反过来又将促进强大的、用户友好的界面。这很重要，因为要使这种设备被野外生物学家接受并正确使用，近乎防弹的操作是必需的。该仪器的现场测试将与生物学家同事正在进行的项目合作完成。这种仪器的可用性将（1）降低许多研究的成本； (2) 大幅（如果需要，可按数量级）提高数据收集的速度和每日覆盖范围； (3) 允许在没有自动收集和实时显示数据的情况下进行逻辑上或技术上不可行的关键调查，以及 (4) 提供高可用性和灵活性，以从无线电发射器收集遥测信息，向调查人员发出重大事件警报，并与其他仪器的并发数据进行协调。关键调查包括生态学和保护生物学的基础研究、濒危物种或其替代物的调查、人类主导栖息地中问题物种的研究以及疾病传播和野生动物康复的调查。