This project will conduct field testing of a low-power wildlife biologging and tracking system being developed for pangolin conservation research in Nigeria. The system integrates miniature biologging tags containing GNSS, inertial, environmental, and radio-frequency sensing and communication hardware with a field-based data-retrieval system. Testing at Harvard Forest will evaluate device performance under realistic forest conditions, including dense vegetation, variable terrain, and partial canopy cover.
The experiments will characterize GNSS acquisition and positioning performance, inertial dead-reckoning, radio communication range and reliability, power-management strategies, data logging, and recovery of data from deployed test devices. We may also evaluate an unmanned aerial vehicle as a mobile communication and localization platform for retrieving data from stationary or researcher-carried test tags.
No wildlife will be captured, handled, tagged, or otherwise involved in these experiments at Harvard Forest. Test devices will be carried by researchers or placed temporarily at designated locations and recovered following testing. The work is intended to validate the system prior to deployment in conservation field studies in Nigeria.