IoSA (Internet of Small Animals): Miniaturised contact loggers for small animals.

In order to understand biological processes such as migration, dispersal and disease transmission, we need to know where animals are moving and who they are meeting. While this has been achieved for a lot of larger animals, the vast majority of animals are too small to effectively monitor without compromising on data accuracy or acquisition rates. This has implications not only for research into animal movement and behaviour, but also for applied applications such as better welfare for captive animals and livestock, and environmental monitoring. The recent advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) which has revolutionized various aspects of daily life have enormous potential in the field of wildlife tracking, but as yet have been little exploited, particularly when considering miniaturized options. We developed ProxLogs, an integrated, flexible and accessible monitoring system for small animals, based around recent improvements to Bluetooth Low Energy protocols. This project aims to develop the Minimum Viable Product, test it in operational environments, and investigate the appropriate business model of the system. This will be a state-of-the-art system which will allow the monitoring of far smaller wild and domestic animals at a greatly improved spatiotemporal scale than has previously been achieved, all while ensuring the system remains low cost and accessible for end users through our use of the widely available Bluetooth protocols. In this project we will further validate the prototype and investigate different potential business models.

Keywords:RADIOFREQUENCY

Disciplines:Animal ecology, Wireless communication and positioning systems