1

AniTrax
System Specifications Team 50 Phase 2 Bandaru Praveen Kumar Lade Pratik Manivasagam Niranjan Rajendhran Krishna Anandh Soundara Rajan Shiyamsundar Thurvas Jeyakumar Sabharinath Babu

Table of Contents
Introduction- Problem Statement............................................................................................................... 4 Research- Existing systems........................................................................................................................5 Telemetry Solutions:.............................................................................................................................5 Telonics:................................................................................................................................................ 6 Functional Requirements........................................................................................................................... 7 GPS Locator.......................................................................................................................................... 7 1. Capabilities................................................................................................................................... 8 2. Additional Capabilities................................................................................................................. 8 Base Station Graphical Interface........................................................................................................... 8 1. Capability......................................................................................................................................8 2. Configurablity...............................................................................................................................9 3. Support..........................................................................................................................................9 Goals and Quality of Life.........................................................................................................................10 User Profile.............................................................................................................................................. 10 Proposed Solution.................................................................................................................................... 10 GPS Unit..............................................................................................................................................10 Interface .............................................................................................................................................. 11 Documentation.................................................................................................................................... 11 References................................................................................................................................................ 12

Definitions and Abbreviations

GUI- Graphical User Interface Abbreviated GUI (pronounced GOO-ee). A program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use GPS- Global positioning system Global Positioning System, a worldwide MEO satellite navigational system formed by 24 satellites orbiting the earth and their corresponding receivers on the earth. Telemetryautomatic transmission and measurement of data from remote sources by wire or radio or other means. Human-animal conflictHumanwildlife conflict refers to the interaction between wild animals and people and the resultant negative impact on people or their resources, or wild animals or their habitat. Argos centerThe Argos centers calculate the transmitter locations by measuring the Doppler Shift on its transmit frequency. IntellisenseIntelli-sense, in computer programming, generally short for intelligent sense or intelligent code sense, is a programming environment that speeds up the process of coding applications by r educing misunderstandings, typos, and other common mistakes. Doppler Shiftan increase (or decrease) in the frequency of sound, light, or other waves as the source and observer move toward (or away from) each other. The effect causes the sudden change in pitch noticeable in a passing siren, as well as the redshift seen by astronomers. API- Application program interfaceis a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together. Sonara system for the detection of objects under water and for measuring the water's depth by emitting sound pulses and detecting or measuring their return after being reflected. VHF- Very High Frequency

Introduction- Problem Statement

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. -Mahatma Gandhi Man continues to convert forests into settlements as a result of increasing population. This has exponentially increased the frequency of events related to man-animal conflicts. Most of these events end either with loss of life on both sides or with loss of agricultural produce. It has become inevitable in the current scenario that man and animal cross each other. Biologists from around the world are working towards building a sustainable future. A study of migration patterns of animals and in general their lifecycle, apart from being of academic importance is vital for preventing this conflict. Unfortunately manual tracking is a very taxing affair. Biologists have nowadays started to use trackers manually attached to the animal to detect its current position. But most of these trackers give only the current position of the animal. This data is not sufficient to make inferences about the particular animals life cycle. Also the information that is relevant for one animal maybe totally irrelevant for an other animal. Simply put, the animal kingdom is highly heterogenous and hence tracking devices must not only be different physically but they must also be different by functionality. For example, storing the path of a migratory animal like a wilder beast or an elephant makes sense, but it is useless in case of an animal like a leopard.

Leopard attacks a villagers as forest officials look to tranquilize it in an Indian village

A herd of elephants crossing a road. With man clearing forests, it is becoming a part of regular life in several villages.[1]

The issue is that a lot of man-animal conflict can be prevented if there was some way to warn the villagers or the forest officials that an animal is close by so that the people could take pre cautions. As a statistic to state the magnitude incidents involving animals, in India every year 10-12000 people are killed by animals. Apart from human lives about 22,000 livestock are killed by animals[2]. The loss is not only for the human side. In India in the past 10 years, 12 endangered species have been made extinct due to human interference and habitat loss[3]. The future for both the sides looks bleak. One the other side conservation efforts are going in vain because biologists are still in the dark regarding the life cycles of certain animals. For example, every year hundreds of whales and dolphins

5 wash up on the shore. There are a lot of suggestions as to why whales do that, but there has not been a conclusive theory[4]. Eels are another species of whom very less is known[5].Bees are another group of animals that are disappearing at an alarming rate,with no conclusive reason[6]. Similarly there are hundred's of endangered animals of whom very less is known.While having more information about these animals does not automatically take them of the endangered list, it will help intensify the conservation effort in the right direction. Thus there is a need to know more information about certain animals. The information need is different from one species to another, so current system that use GPS tracking fail. AniTrax is a software solution that collects location information of the animal, logs the animals motion history,makes inferences from the logged data and upon request presents this information to the user in variety of formats( maps, graphs, bar charts etc.). The data available is again dependent on the species that is being studied. Chapter two presents the pros and cons of the existing systems and how AniTrax solves the existing issues. Chapter 3 gives the functional requirements of the system. Chapter 4 explains how AniTrax helps resolve the issue that we set out to solve. Chapter 5 gives a profile of the different users of the system based on which the UI has to be designed. Chapter 6 and 7 briefly explains the proposed solution and its expandable features that could be implemented in the future.

Research- Existing systems

There are an abundance of animal tracking devices available in the market. We believe that studying how these systems function will help us design a better solution. Tracking devices have multiple components in them. There are several companies that manufacture GPS trackers for wildlife. Their products have several pros and cons. Below is a discussion on a few products and their specifications.

Telemetry Solutions:
One of the current leaders that provide GPS tracking services for animals is Telemetry Solutions[7]. They manufacture collars of various sizes and shapes which can be used based on the species. Their collars relay the GPS data to a base station periodically. The base station downloads the data and logs it into a file. Pros: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Cons: 1. 2. Does not need a human to monitor it constantly. Fairly simple and a lot of customer support available. Provides tracking for more than 100 species. Weight of the devices range from 5 grams- over a 100 grams. User can program the interval between two data requests by the base station. Their products are specific for a particular species. The base station only gives the latitude longitude information. It does not have the capacity to interpret the results in a way that the user needs to study the animal.

6 3. User Interface is highly unfriendly. 4. Cannot detect animal groups.

Telonics:
Telonics[8] is a company that provides telemetry solutions for a variety of applications that include Intrusion detection, oceanography, wildlife tracking and so on. Pros: 1. Their devices are programable. 2. Attempts to partially make the system independent of the species. There are separate range of products for terrestrial and marine animals. 3. Utilizes Argo[10], GPS and Very High Frequency transmitters. Cons: 1. Slightly bulkier. 2. Good with tracking individual animals but there is no option to detect groups of animals. 3. The receiver is a palm top with a flimsy interface tot obtain GPS data. There are several such products in market with similar functionality. While these transmitters solve a certain problem, one major issue with all these system is that the user will get only the GPS location data. The user will then have to manually analyze the data to obtain information like the proximity of an animal to a human settlement, or the proximity to shore, or the path travelled by the animal over a period of time. The below figures show the interface of a Telonic system on a windows PC. The following parameters of the device can be set or changed using the GUI.
Transmitter frequency Transmitter repetition periods Transmitter power level Transmitter schedule Argos message settings Pre-deployment test duration Sensor schedules and options Custom battery information Battery thresholds Spread-spectrum settings

As seen above there is no option to process the obtained data from the device. It is just used to log the data obtained in a text file
Telonics Product Programmer Telemetric collar

7 Other notable mentions are products from the company Sirtrack[9]. The innovation that separates their product from their competitors is that they offer several attachment modes. This further expands their devices ability because, while the collar is the most prevalent mode of attachment to the animal, it is not realistic to use a collar for certain animals like whales, or certain animals whose neck diameter is larger than their heads, for example the the Greylag Goose. For such animals the tracker is attached using one of the following methods shown below. Harness Attachment: Used for animals with larger necks. Direct Attachment: Used for birds, reptiles and marine animals.The unit is glued on to the skin using epoxy. Other Attachment modes: In case of rhinos, the device is drilled into the horn.

Functional Requirements
Based on research on the existing systems, the most important setbacks are 1. Lack of GUI to process the data collected form the GPS tracker. 2. Inability to detect animals as a herd. 3. Inability to collect data based on the type of animal on which the device is attached. The AniTrax is the solution to the above problems. The AniTrax should have two separate components, a GPS based locator and a GUI at the base station. Below is an explanation of the two components, the expected functionality and the expected characteristics of each of the components.

GPS Locator
The tracking architecture has transmitter attached to the animal.The below figure shows the working of the GPS transmitter.
Global Positioning System-Working

8 This only gives the location of the animal on which the device is attached. In order to obtain the location of the heard, a mini sonar that gets activated prior to the the transmitter's activation. The range of the sonar is pre-set to an approximate value. A processing unit, has the approximate shape information of the animal through which , a count of the number of similar animals in the herd should be obtained and transmitted along with the GPS location.

1. Capabilities
a. An actuator should periodically activate the transmitter and send the location information to the base station. b. Obtain the size of the herd from the sonar and the processing unit. c. A processing unit should have algorithms for the shape estimation of the animal.

2. Additional Capabilities
The tracker unit should be fire resistant and water resistant. The flow chart below show the actuation and working of the GPS transmitter
Working of the transmitter Yes

Actuator

Is time

Sonar

herd count No Device Coordinates

GPS Device

Satelite System

Transmitter

Base Station Graphical Interface

The graphical interface at the users end is the part of AniTrax, that makes it stand out from the existing systems. Its default view should be a global map view that displays the locations of all the animals in the region. This location should be plotted on an actual map of the region. All the data that is obtained from the tracker should be logged. This data base should be updated dynamically.

1. Capability
a. A Global map view of all the animals in the system. b. A warning should be shown when the an individual animal or a herd approaches a human

9 habitat. c. The user should be able to select any animal individually(lion, kangaroo etc.) or a group of animals( mammals, herbivores, carnivores etc) and view only those on the map. d. The system should automatically detect newly installed trackers and request the user to input data about the animal on which the tracker is attached. e. The user must be able to generate graphs, tables or charts instantly after he inputs the parameters he is attempting to measure. f. The user interference must also estimate the battery life for each transmitter for a given delay between transmissions. It should send out a warning to the user when a transmitter is about to burn out g. The system must have the capacity to analyze large amounts of data and perform computations on it. Below is the data that is to be collected for a newly deployed tracker. The user will be entering this data on a form. Name of the animal and its scientific name. Animal family based on taxonomy(mammal, reptile, avian etc.). Herbivore or carnivore. Is the animal social or individual? Is a warning required when it comes in close proximity to a village? Below is an example list (but not limited to) of input parameters that the user may enter. The system must be able to collect an analyze the parameters and present this data in the form the user needs Number of animals of each type (herbivores, carnivorous, mammals, reptiles, birds etc.) Average Distance travelled by different animal types. The path travelled by a particular group of animals over some period of time. A comparison of distance travelled by a herd in each quarter of an year. The number of times in a year a particular species goes in close proximity to the animals.

2. Configurablity
a. The user must be able to set the intervals between two transmissions for individual trackers b. The users should be able view the estimated shape of the animal at any point of time.

3. Support
The system must be able to support several input modes, like mouse and keyboard. The software should run on a touch screen based base station computer. In this case it must have a virtual keyboard. Since the data collected is very important, regular backup must be taken.

10 The user interference must be capable of running in distributed environment. This because the system constantly performs interpretation over a large corpus of data. It makes sense to store this data on multiple servers and implement distributed computation.

Goals and Quality of Life

The overall goal of the of this project is to reduce or effectively nullify the events pertaining to man-animal conflict. The system is also of academic importance to learn more about the animal migrations and the life cycle of certain mysterious species. Current products in the market with similar functions only function as a tracker. It is not possible to infer anything from the location data that they output between regular intervals. This a major set back because these systems leave it to the user to make extensive manual work in order to obtain any data that is significant. In most cases the user has very limited knowledge to make these inferences. AniTrax is also platform independent. This allows it to run on any operating system. The feature that sets AniTrax apart form its competitors is its use of the cloud and the artificial intelligent algorithms that it utilizes to satisfy the users information need in a click of a mouse or a touch of the screen. AniTrax not only allows people in villages or settlements around forest areas to feel more secure, it gives vital data regarding the behavioral of the animal with respect to the environment it is in. This data can help us better understand the animals and fasten conservation efforts in the right direction.

User Profile
The major users of AniTrax are biologists and forest officials. While one can assume that both these users have a fair knowledge of the the animal kingdom it is not realistic to expect the users to know the characteristics and scientific names of all the species in the world. Also an outside user who could use Anitrax is a village administrator who has no knowledge of the the animal kingdom. Below is a list of users and their characteristics Biologists: Moderate knowledge of the animal kingdom. Limited to no knowledge of using computers. Village Administrators: No knowledge of the animal kingdom. Limited to no knowledge of using computers. Forest Official: Limited knowledge of animal kingdom. Limited to no knowledge of using computers. It is hence vital that AniTrax is highly user friendly, and suggestive to the user.

11

Proposed Solution
A few suggestions to make a system that everyone would love to use:

GPS Unit
1. Using artificial intelligent algorithms in the processing unit for the shape estimation. 2. Allowing the users to configure the GPS settings remotely from base station.

Interface
1. Providing Intellisense to the user and giving suggestions to the user as he types. Have a map (key,value) with common names as the key and scientific names as the value automatically filling it out on the form. 2. Designing an interface that contains several views and the capability to slide between views seamlessly.Examples- Map view, Data input form view, Data Analysis view(tables and graphs). 3. All the data that the system collects is stored on a cloud and is dynamically updated. 4. Designing an app for the users phone so that he does not have to constantly monitor the system. The notifications are sent to the app when an animal is in vicinity of a human settlement. 5. Using an APIs like Google Maps to operate on the map view and providing the users flexibility. Below is a snapshot of the map view that is visible to the user.

Documentation
1. The AniTrax comes with a complete users manual both in hard and soft formats. 2. There is also a comprehensive video tutorial collection. 3. Extensive customer support.

12

References
1. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/man-animal-conflict/news/ 2. Human animal conflict- Species fact sheet: http://wwf.panda.org/?62900/Factsheet-HumanAnimal-Conflict 3. http://newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/article1404176.ece 4. Why do whales beach themselves?:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=whydo-whales-beach-themselves 5. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929100652.htm 6. http://www.cracked.com/article/18361_6-creepy-animal-behaviors-that-science-cantexplain/k.com 7. Telemetry Solutions: http://www.telemetrysolutions.com/gps-devices.php 8. Telonics: http://www.telonics.com/wildlife.php 9. SirTrack: http://www.sirtrac 10. How does Argos track mobile platforms? How does Argos monitoring work?: http://www.argos-system.com/html/system/how_it_works/tracking_en.html