5.2 - LORA based Biotelemetry System for Large Land Mammals

Abstract

The best way to understand the environment and its actors is monitoring them. Brazil has the two most biodiversified forests in the planet, the Amazon and the Atlantic forests, a vast field for biotelemetry. Biotelemetry is still made in the most part of the world with obsolete technologies, causing animal stress and demanding a lot of extra field human work. A good biotelemetric system must have quasi-real time, no animal stress, channels for biological, climate, meteorological, and positional data, low power, shorter antenna, and low cost as possible characteristics. It was designed a LORA® technology based animal tracking device, small enough to fit in a collar of a large mammal (e.g., Panthera onca), capable to provide real-time position information and other physiological parameters. Tests was made where a volunteer, with the device rode a bicycle through a large urban area and the real time data, collected by a fixed base, were successfully compared with reference GARMIN GPS® device data. Additionally, several Arduino based circuits for physiological, positional and meteorological data measurements can provide extra information for the biotelemetric system proposed. The system is ready to field biological tests and needs improvement and integration with other GPS, GPRS and UHF technologies.

Uso de Tecnologias Globais para a Determinação de Habitats de Espécies Bioindicadoras e de Transformações de Territórios / Using Global Technologies for Determining Bioindicator Species Habitats and Territory Transformations

“…Em 2014, foi encomendada uma disciplina especial de Cartografia e Orientação no PPGEB/UTFPR, com o objetivo de capacitar profissionais da Engenharia Biomédica a fazer trabalhos de campo, principalmente nas áreas de monitoração de espécies animais com tecnologia de engenharia. Tecnologia LORA também foi utilizada [10], podendo também se utilizar da internet das coisas, como ferramenta de transmissão de informação e comunicação entre diferentes tipos de tecnologias, como já usado em vários outros segmentos de estudos ambientais e agrícolas [11].…”