WildTrack: An IoT System for Tracking Passive-RFID Microchipped Wildlife for Ecology Research

Abstract

Wildlife tracking is used to acquire information on the movement, behaviour and survival of animals in their natural habitat for a wide range of ecological questions. However, tracking and monitoring free-ranging animals in the field is typically labour-intensive and particularly difficult in species that are small, cryptic, or hard to re-capture. In this paper, we describe and evaluate an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based tracking system which automatically logs detected passive RFID tags and uploads them to the cloud. This system was successfully evaluated with 90 sensor modules deployed in a 30 ha wildlife sanctuary to monitor a small nocturnal mammal of less than 20 g in body size.