FOR 1508:  Dynamically Adaptable Positioning of Bats Using Embedded Communicating Sensor Systems

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Biology
• Term: from 2012 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 167288317

Efficient networking of energy efficient, miniaturised sensor nodes is a key element for a multitude of different innovative applications. Possible applications range from global sensor networks, for example for weather monitoring, to local sensor networks, such as for dynamically tracking a plurality of moving objects, e.g., the detection of the status and the movement of an animal population. Sensor networks are especially useful if they do not affect the environment much and enable the data acquisition in problematic or hard-to-access areas. The global objective of this Research Unit is to gain fundamental knowledge in the design, construction and operation of adaptive, heterogeneous, intelligent sensor networks incorporating both static and mobile sensor nodes. The interdisciplinary group of researchers formed by biologists, computer scientists and electrical engineers aims to develop and demonstrate cutting-edge methods and procedures for data collection, data management and data analysis. The newly developed techniques and procedures will be exemplarily used to analyse the behaviour of bats, a species identified by the flora-fauna-habitat directive of the European Union as a particularly valuable species. In the context of the research project, bats will be equipped with miniaturised, ultra-light-weight radio transmitters, which have limited memory and processing resources for data handling. A network of ground-based, static sensors will be used for monitoring a multitude of sensor node-equipped bats. For behavioural studies of bats only a relatively coarse estimation of the flown trajectories with an accuracy of a few meters is sufficient. As is the case with many other applications, the costs and energy consumption of sub-meter accurate and real-time localisation systems do not pay off. Only in rare cases a site or time dependent higher accuracy is necessary in order to study the social or the hunting behaviour more closely. Thus the primary design goals of the sensor network include the spatial scalability of the network and minimum weight (less than 2 grams), minimal power consumption, minimal volume and a bat-friendly form factor of the mobile sensor nodes applied to the bats.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Panama

Projects

• Adaptable tracking with respect to accuracy - energy - robustness (Applicant Thielecke, Jörn )
• Data-stream Query Optimization Across System Boundaries (Applicant Meyer-Wegener, Klaus )
• Energy Efficient Management and Self-organized Operation in Sensor Networks (Applicant Dressler, Falko )
• Integrated, Reconfigurable Sensor Node with Localization Capability for the Recording of Measured Data and Social Interactions of Bats (Applicant Weigel, Robert )
• Investigation of the foraging and social behaviour of bats with wireless sensor systems (Applicant Mayer, Frieder )
• Long-Range Telemetry for Mobile Transmitters (Applicant Robert, Jörg )
• Miniaturized, Reconfigurable Sensor Node with Localization Functionality for Measurement Data Acquisition and Contact Monitoring between Bats (Applicant Kölpin, Alexander )
• Run-time environment for resource-scarce networked systems (Applicants Kapitza, Rüdiger ;  Schröder-Preikschat, Wolfgang )
• Scientific Coordination of the Research Group (Applicant Weigel, Robert )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr.-Ing. Robert Weigel