Parlin Adam F, Horning Ned A, Alstad Jason P, Cosentino Bradley J, Gibbs James P
Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
Wildlife Movement Institute, Savanah, GA, USA.
HardwareX. 2025 Jul 2;23:e00669. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2025.e00669. eCollection 2025 Sep.
The advent of GNSS tracking has allowed researchers to obtain detailed information on animal movement, which informs basic natural history and conservation management decisions. However, many devices are tailored to specific taxa thus limiting broader applicability. We present an open-source LoRaWAN (long range wide area network) GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) tracker, and an alternative commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) development board global positioning system (GPS) tracker, a subset of the GNSS system. The COTS development board tracker provides a pathway for designing and implementing a general purpose LoRaWAN tracking unit, while the advantages of the Wildlife Movement Institute (WMI) tracker permit specific animal tracking and additional information to be collected, such as battery voltage, estimated precision error, and received signal strength intensity. Both units have documentation for setting up a LoRa application and network server and can be easily programmed using the Arduino Integrated Development Environment. To test the utility of these trackers in a LoRa data transmission application, we pilot tested the units on Eastern gray squirrels in Syracuse, New York, USA. Our trackers highlight the capability for customizable, open-source tracking technology that can be tailored to a suite of study organisms allowing researchers to design, develop, and deploy low-cost, specialized wildlife tracking equipment.
全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）追踪技术的出现，使研究人员能够获取有关动物活动的详细信息，这些信息为基础自然历史研究和保护管理决策提供了依据。然而，许多设备是针对特定分类群量身定制的，因此限制了其更广泛的适用性。我们展示了一款开源的长距离广域网（LoRaWAN）全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）追踪器，以及一款替代的商用现成（COTS）开发板全球定位系统（GPS）追踪器，它是GNSS系统的一个子集。COTS开发板追踪器为设计和实现通用的LoRaWAN追踪单元提供了一条途径，而野生动物运动研究所（WMI）追踪器的优势在于能够进行特定动物追踪并收集额外信息，如电池电压、估计精度误差和接收信号强度。这两个单元都有关于设置LoRa应用程序和网络服务器的文档，并且可以使用Arduino集成开发环境轻松编程。为了测试这些追踪器在LoRa数据传输应用中的效用，我们在美国纽约州锡拉丘兹对东部灰松鼠进行了试点测试。我们的追踪器凸显了可定制的开源追踪技术的能力，这种技术可以针对一系列研究生物体进行定制，使研究人员能够设计、开发和部署低成本的专用野生动物追踪设备。
