A Wearable Device Network to Track Animal Behavior and Relationships in the Wild

Abstract

The advancements in sensor technology have made it possible to design wearable devices specifically designed for animals. These wearable devices can be used for locating individual animals, monitor their status, and track their trajectories in the wild. Some animal groups (such as chimpanzees) exhibit complex group behavior and these group dynamics play an important role in the physical and mental health of the animals. Scientists have traditionally been monitoring group dynamics manually in the wild. This requires extensive field trips, costing a lot of time and money. This calls for using the recent developments in technology, such as smart wearable devices for this purpose. However, lack of infrastructure support (limited connectivity, limited power, etc.) in the wilderness makes this a tedious task. In this work-in-progress paper, we present our technological approach and how we address the issues of wilderness to study animal behavior. We demonstrate how we build a network of lightweight wearable devices, and how the digital output of these devices can be used to analyze animal relationship. We show an initial, exploratory experiment, outlining the capabilities of the devices and technologies used in terms of communication efficiency, and the potential of the devices that can be used in the wilderness. Our initial results show that up to 90% of the proximity-based interactions can be captured.