IDBR: Universal Base-Station for Wildlife Radio-Tracking and Telemetry

在过去的30年里，无线电跟踪标签极大地提高了我们对野生动物行为的了解，而且新型的标签正在开发中，这些标签可以捕获和传输有关野生动物行为的更多信息。微电子技术的进步也缩小了标签的尺寸，增加了标签的使用寿命，增加了可以标记的物种的数量。不幸的是，这些不同的标签使用各种各样的频率、编码方案和通信协议，每个新标签都需要一个全新的基站。这使得新的部署更加昂贵，不允许在重叠的研究之间共享监测站，并且要求现场的生物学家为使用的每种标签类型携带一个基站。这个项目的目标是为行为生态学家和其他人开发一种通用的无线电收发器，可以很容易地配置与任何现有的野生动物跟踪标签进行通信，以及可预见的未来设计。我们的方法是基于软件定义的无线电，其中无线电的大多数参数都在软件中配置，允许单个硬件覆盖多种类型的标签。在这个项目中，我们将开发能够覆盖至少3种不同的现有鸟类标签的工作原型，并展示他们在现场工作。我们还将开发一种可以捕获信号但不解码的模式，允许来自不同研究人员的标签信号被相同的物理基站捕获，然后分发给不同的研究人员进行解码。最后，我们将确保最终输出的格式允许将捕获的信号顺利上传到数据库，如MOVEBANK。为了确保我们的“通用基站”可供其他研究人员使用，我们将在互联网上发布我们开发的所有电路板设计，零件清单和软件，以及所有设计和软件的文档。我们的目标是，UBS的设计不仅对研究人员开放，而且对业余观鸟者和其他“公民科学家”开放，使他们能够为研究做出贡献，并增强他们的观鸟经验（或者，允许他们在发现一只被标记的鸟后，在数据库中查找“他们的鸟”，并了解更多关于它的特定行为和运动的信息）。为了进一步实现这一目标，我们将尝试开发一个智能手机接口到我们的UBS，允许现场的观鸟者通过手机捕获和上传他们遇到的标签的数据。这项工作将为专业和业余的生物学家提供宝贵的工具，同时也将为工程专业的学生提供宝贵的教育经验。本设计的部分内容将纳入课堂项目，大部分设计工作将由工程专业本科生和硕士生完成，作为毕业设计项目。因为这个项目需要团队合作，有明确的具体目标和规格，以及明确的最终客户（在这个项目中合作的现场生物学家），这个项目将为学生准备在工业中工作提供宝贵的经验。欲了解更多详情，请访问：http://molnargroup.ece.cornell.edu/research.html

Radio-enabled tracking tags have dramatically enhanced our knowledge of wildlife behavior over the last 3 decades, and new types of tags are being developed which capture and transmit dramatically more information about their behavior. Advances in microelectronics have also reduced the size and increased the lifetime of tags, increasing the number of species that can be tagged. Unfortunately these various tags use a wide variety of frequencies, coding schemes, and communication protocols, requiring an entirely new base station for each new tag. This makes new deployments more expensive, disallows sharing of monitoring stations between overlapping studies, and requires that that biologists in the field carry a base station for every tag type in use.The goal of this project is to develop a general-purpose radio transceiver for behavioral ecologists and others that can be easily configured to communicate with any existing wildlife tracking tag, as well as with foreseeable future designs. Our approach is based on software defined radios, where most of the parameters of the radio are configured in software, allowing a single piece of hardware to cover multiple types of tags. In this project we will develop working prototypes able to cover at least 3 different existing avian tags, and show them working in the field. We will also develop a mode where signals can be captured, but not decoded, to allow tag signals from different researchers to be captured by the same physical basestation, and then distributed to the various researchers to be decoded. Finally, we will ensure that the resulting outputs are in a format that allows smooth upload of captured signals to databases such as MOVEBANK.To ensure that our 'universal base stations' are available to other researchers, we will post on the internet all board designs, parts lists and software we develop, as well as documentation of all designs and software. Our goal is that UBS designs be accessible not only to researchers, but also to amateur birders and other 'citizen scientists', allowing them to contribute to research, as well as enhancing their birding experience (or example, by allowing them, after detecting a tagged bird, to look up 'their bird' in a database and learn more about it's particular behavior and movement. To further this goal, we will attempt to develop a smart-phone interface to our UBS, to allow birders in the field to capture and upload data from tags they encounter via their phones. While this work will provide a valuable tool for biologists, both professional and amateur, it will also provide valuable educational experience for engineering students. Parts of this project will be incorporated into class projects, and much of the design work required will be completed by undergraduate and Masters of Engineering students completing as design projects required for graduation. Because this project requires teamwork, has specific concrete goals and specifications, and clear end-customers (field biologist who are collaborating on this project), this project will provide invaluable experience in preparing students planning on working in industry.For more details, see: http://molnargroup.ece.cornell.edu/research.html