september technical meeting slovenia september 22-25 2008

September 24th, 2008 www.n4c.eu 1

September Technical MeetingSlovenia September 22-25 2008

Session: Application 2. Animal Tracking

Santiago Zazo – Universidad Politécnica de Madrid [email protected]

www.upm.es

Networking for Communications Challenged Communities: Architecture, Test Beds and Innovative Alliances

Grant Agreement: 223994



Sept. 24th, 2008 www.n4c.eu 2

Contents• Stages of this research line• Schedule• Tasks Walk-through

– Preliminary considerations– Software simulator– HW implementations– Real trials, presentation

• Discussion




Stages

Preliminary considerations

Softwaresimulator

First HWImplem.

ControlledTrials

DesignRelease 1

Second HWImplem.

Presentation

tool

DesignRelease 2

Trialswith animals(few equip.)




Schedule

D6.4M6.4

D6.5

D6.4 (Month 24): Mesh Networking for mobile ultra low power radio linksD6.5 (Month 30): Update of D6.4 based on experience from field tests

M6.4 (Month 24): Prototype of the lower layers of the ultra low power radio system

Task M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S OPreliminary considerations

Software simulatorDesign release 1

First HW implementationControlled trials

Design release 2Second HW implementation

Presentation toolTrials (scaled) with animals

Documentation




Preliminary considerations (1)• Definition of potential scenarios

– Summer group: 15000 animals, 80x150 Km2.– Winter group: 3000 animals, 20x50 Km2

• Related information– Animal movement models: groups of around 10 animals, 1- 2 Km/h,

interchange of animals among the groups when crossing. • Unkown information

– Acceptable density of hot spots in the area and in the perimeter.– Description of the movement of the head (for the kinetic generator)– Expected (desired) features of the application

• Number of times (per day) the information must be retrieved by the application• Accuracy: in the position and in the number of animals that are tracked • Mean time between batteries replacement

• Performance of other existing solutions– Consumption, accuracy, cost per unit, autonomy…




Preliminary considerations (2)• Definition of the nodes participating in the network

– Secondary nodes: simplest equipment carried by most of the animals. They use a kinetic generator (no batteries required!!) to transmit their identification randomly.

– Primary nodes: more complex equipment carried by some selected animals with GPS that listen to the secondary nodes and merge identifications and location information. From time to time (depending on proximity) they upload this information to the base stations.

– Base stations (hot-spots) spread over the surveillance area and perimeter to collect positioning information. Could be fixed (portable) or mobile (maybe we can use the term nomadic station to emphasize this fact…). They may be equipped with two transceivers: one to listen to the primary nodes and other to communicate with other hot-spots or control center in much longer links.




Preliminary considerations (3)• Combined functionality

– Primary and secondary nodes designed by UPM following minimum consumption principles.

– Base stations are nodes of a hybrid network forwarding DTN messages and positioning information via longer links (WiFi, WiMAX…). An interface must be agreed

Gateway(INTEL)

WiMax??

WiFi??

DT

N A

pplic

atio

n

Ani

mal

Tra

ckin

g

UPM transceiver

Mobile nodesBase Station

UPM responsibility INTEL / TCD / IPN responsibility




Preliminary considerations (4)• HW design primary constraint: optimize the chips

selection and connections to minimize consumption although with enough capacity to guarantee the expected performance.

• SW design: ad-hoc programing of the electronic devices (processor,…) and specific communication protocol to minimize transmitted power and messages transmission from the animal to the hot spot through the network nodes.




Integration of animal tracking application and DTN networks

Te

chn

olo

gie

s




Software simulator(1)• It will be the key tool to select the set of optimum parameters

to minimize consumption while maximizing connectivity




Software simulator (2)• Objective: define ONE representative scenario to obtain the

optimum set of parameters– Inputs: Number of animals, density of hot spots in the area and in the

perimeter, dimensions of the area, radius of coverage of the link secondary to primary, radius of coverage of the primary to the base station, mean number of times the secondary node transmits its identification.

– Outputs: secondary to primary nodes ratio, period where the primary node is active for listening, period of activation of GPS, interval of transmission of the primary node to the base station.

• This design will determine the characteristics of the HW: size of memory, expected consumption…

• Choice of the scenario: 200 animals, 10x10 Km2. Different terrains characteristics. Design criteria will be to determine the optimum density of hot-spots depending on tracking capabilities, positioning accuracy…




HW, real tests, presentation and data privacy

• HW first release for design validation. It will be defined a set of controlled situations to assess the performance. Very important to test the efficiency of the mechanical part (ad-hoc design for the movement of the head of the animal..)

• HW second release. Few miniaturized prototypes will be delivered to be included in a bag or collar for some scaled tests using real animals. Ex: 1Km2, 2 primary nodes, 10 secondary nodes, 4 cornered hot-spots (links between the hot-spots will not be considered).

• A presentation tool will be developed to make sure that every owner just has information of its animals. This information will be presented in a graphical way (tracks) and with distressing situations detection (animal not detected in days, animals that crossed the perimeter…)




Criteria to measure success• Selection of the most suitable set of parameters is an

optimization problem. Success is related to the implementation of the simulation tool and its capability to manage large number of variables.

• HW implementation success will be related to measured performance and comparison with the simulation tool prediction

• Fair comparison with existing HWs in terms of accuracy, consumption, manufacturing cost…

• Enviromental related achivements: avoidance of using thousands of batteries…

september technical meeting slovenia september 22-25 2008

Documents

test beds

selected animals

number of animals

interchange of animals

primary nodes

networksecondary nodes

location information

positioning information