Biotelemetry: A brief history and future developments in lowering cost Kevin Xua, Mark Gartnera Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA a
Kevin is a junior in the Department of Bioengineering on the cellular engineering track from Mars, PA. Kevin has always had an interest in connecting biomedical concepts to technology and takes pride in helping to find novel approaches to existing problems. Kevin Xu
Mark Gartner
Dr. Gartner is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering, primarily teaching the Senior Design course. After receiving degrees from both Pitt and CMU, Dr. Gartner began his work in medical product design and development at UPMC. Dr. Gartner also co-founded Enison, Inc., a vertically-integrated incubator that developed medical products based on a “surface first� philosophy.
Significance Statement
The study of wildlife behavior is extremely important but is hard to accomplish in its current state due to the lack of accessibility for biotelemetric devices. Through the development and adaptation of current tracking systems, researchers are creating lower-cost devices that will allow for more widespread study of animal species.
Category: Review/perspective paper
Keywords: Biotelemetry, wildlife, tracking, history
110 Undergraduate Research at the Swanson School of Engineering
Abstract
Biotelemetry is crucial to a variety of wildlife and conservation-related assessments. The three main systems used in biotelemetry today (very high frequency transmitters, global positioning system tracking, and satellite tracking) all have advantages and disadvantages, but the expense and difficulty of implementing biotelemetric hardware remains a barrier to entering the field. The recent research and development into newer systems has made it easier to get involved in biotelemetry, yet the cost of hardware still makes it difficult to study many animals in diverse and widespread areas. Current research into creating lower-cost tracking devices using off-the-shelf, open-source hardware have helped pushed for more access to biotelemetric devices. The continuation of this research and the push for more accessible biotelemetric devices will allow researchers not to only learn more about wildlife behavior, but also factors such as wildlife biology and ecology.
1. Introduction
Wildlife research is a long-standing and extensive field, but the study of animals and wildlife has certainly not been easy. Humans have lived among animals for thousands of years, but for most of this time, information about animals was gathered by simple observation and chance, rather than finding a systematic or quantitative approach to observation. However, with the development of biotelemetry in the 1960s, researchers have been able to improve their study of the general movement and behavior of animals. Biotelemetry involves the capture and tagging of a species of interest with a transmitter device. Once tagged, the device transmits radio signals to reveal the location of the transmitter and also to relay any other information or data that may be collected. Location data is extremely important and can be used to study an animal’s preferred habitat, home range, and to understand population dynamics. Details into animal movement can reveal fundamental behaviors such as how the animal acquires food, shelter, or mates or how they survive in general. Typically, biotelemetry involves three different techniques: very high frequency (VHF) transmitters, global positioning system (GPS) tracking, and satellite tracking. VHF tracking is also known as direct tracking and is used in close proximity to the tracker in order to find the exact location of a tagged animal. GPS and satellite tracking allow an animal to be tracked globally and is useful for remote tracking or for tracking migrating animals, since locations can be accurately determined regardless of distance. While exciting developments are being made in the field of biotelemetry in the improvement of technologies, biotelemetric hardware is extremely expensive and frequently challenging to implement [1]. As a result, only a small number of units are typically purchased and only the most at-risk animals are studied. In addition, the access to these technologies can be extremely difficult in developing countries, and as a result, limitations on sample size must be made in studies [2]. In this paper we will explore (1) the progression and development of new technologies
