Vildehaye: A Family of Versatile, Widely-Applicable, and Field-Proven Lightweight Wildlife Tracking and Sensing Tags

TL;DR

Vildehaye introduces a versatile, lightweight wildlife tracking system with customizable hardware and software, extensively tested in real ecological studies, enabling broad application in animal monitoring and research.

Contribution

The paper presents a comprehensive, open-source wildlife tracking system with modular hardware and firmware, adaptable for various animals and research needs, and validated through extensive field deployment.

Findings

Over 7100 tags produced and deployed in multiple ecological studies.

System used by 5 research groups across 4 countries over 5 years.

Contributed to 9 scientific publications, including in Science.

Abstract

We describe the design and implementation of Vildehaye, a family of versatile, widely-applicable, and field-proven tags for wildlife sensing and radio tracking. The family includes 6 distinct hardware designs for tags, 3 add-on boards, a programming adapter, and base stations; modular firmware for tags and base stations (both standalone low-power embedded base stations and base stations tethered to a computer running Linux or Windows); and desktop software for programming and configuring tags, monitoring tags, and downloading and processing sensor data. The tags are versatile: they support multiple packet formats, data rates, and frequency bands; they can be configured for minimum mass (down to less than 1g), making them applicable to a wide range of flying and terrestrial animals, or for inclusion of important sensors and large memories; they can transmit packets compatible with time-of-arrival transmitter-localization systems, tag identification and state packets, and they can reliably upload sensor data through their radio link. The system has been designed, upgraded, and maintained as an academic research project, but it has been extensively used by 5 different groups of ecologists in 4 countries over a period of 5 years. More than 7100 tags have been produced and most of these have been deployed. Production used 41 manufacturing runs. The tags have been used in studies that so far resulted in 9 scientific publications in ecology (including in Science). The paper describes innovative design aspects of Vildehaye, field-use experiences, and lessons from the design, implementation, and maintenance of the system. Both the hardware and software of the system are open.