TECHNICAL VIABILITY STUDY FOR BEHAVIORAL

MONITORING OF WILDLIFE ANIMALS IN DOÑANA

An 802.15.4 Coverage Study in a Natural Park

M. Dominguez-Morales, A. Jimenez-Fernández, D. Cascado-Caballero,

A. Linares-Barranco, R. Paz, G. Jiménez-Moreno

Robotic and Technology of Computers Lab, University of Seville, ETSII Av. Reina Mercedes s/n, Seville, Spain

R. Soriguer

Biological Station of Doñana, CSIC, Av. Americo Vespucio. EDB-CNM, Seville, Spain

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, WSN, XBee, ZigBee, 802.15.4, Motes, Wireless coverage, Wild animals,

Doñana.

Abstract: The study and monitoring of wildlife and in semi-freedom has always been a subject of great interest. In

recent years the technology allows to design low cost systems that facilitate these tasks: microcontrollers,

low-power wireless networks, sensors. GPS, satellite and VHF has been used for position tracking and

localization of wildlife. Our aim is to design a low-cost system for local monitoring of wildlife (collar or

harness) with local memory and remote access. It will use multiples sensors for behavioral and health

monitoring and fuse the processed information locally to reduce the stored data, but allowing to be

sporadically transmitted through wireless networks. This collar will be based on an embedded low-power

microcontroller with 802.15.4 transceiver and a set of sensors to provide data (activity and health) of the

animal under monitoring: accelerometers, compass, humidity, temperature, light, microphone, heart rhythm.

This collar is called mote in wireless sensors network (WSN) terminology. Only when one mote is closer to

an 802.15.4 mote and under request, the collar will dump the information to a host database server through

the 802.15.4 network. In this paper we present a viability study of the WSN for Doñana Natural Park for

different mote transmission powers, frequencies and distances for coverage. ZigBee and XBee mote has

been proven.

1 INTRODUCTION

The monitoring of animal life can be classified into

two groups: monitoring wildlife and livestock

operations monitoring extensive. During the second

half of the twentieth century basically three wildlife

tracking methods were used: Haller (2001),

Markham (2008), Findholt (1996) and Mech (2002)

by VHF tracking, by GPS and by Satellite. The

traditional VHF system collapse as soon as it started

using multiples collars because of the scarcity of

frequencies assigned, which began to codify the

signs that each collars forward to optimize

localization, as in Allen (2009) work. Satellite

localization mechanisms (Argos in particular) are so

expensive that only migratory animals were used in

the continent, as in Mech (2002) and Vodafone

references. Back in the nineties years, localization

mechanisms were implemented based on fixed

nodes covering a wide area by triangulation (without

using GPS) with a precision of 50 meters. This was

subsequently improved by GPS obtaining a higher

precision, see Rempel (1995). Some of the systems

referenced are the ZebraNet that apart of using GPS

to implement localization, it includes other sensors

to detect the monitored animal activity. However,

the main characteristics of our system is that it stores

the data collected locally and that these may be

transferred between different collars until they are

collected by the researcher.

The ZebraNet system, see Juang (2002),

describes mechanisms for data collection from

different sensors in order to process the information

off-line. This allows finding patterns in information

that can be associated to the various activities of

Dominguez-Morales M., Jimenez-Fernández A., Cascado-Caballero D., Linares-Barranco A., Paz R., Jiménez-Moreno G. and Soriguer R..

TECHNICAL VIABILITY STUDY FOR BEHAVIORAL MONITORING OF WILDLIFE ANIMALS IN DOÑANA - An 802.15.4 Coverage Study in a Natural

Park.

DOI: 10.5220/0003524300980101

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Data Communication Networking and Optical Communication System (DCNET-2011), pages 98-101

ISBN: 978-989-8425-69-0

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

animal: eat, hunt, sleep,... The possibility that this

pattern recognition can be performed locally on each

collar on the animal is very attractive because it

reduces the transmission time and the information

post processing.

In this paper we present the results of a viability

study of applying WSN for these collars in the

Doñana Natural Park. The viability study is focused

on 802.15.4 networks with different power

transmissions and two different frequencies:

868MHz and 2.4GHz.

Next section presents a review of 802.15.4 WSN,

focusing on ZigBee and XBee standards. Section 3

presents the scenario for the viability study. Then in

section 4 we present some results and finally we

present the conclusions and future work in section 5.

2 WSN TECHNOLOGIES

802.15.4 (Zigbee Alliance web page:

http://www.zigbee.org) is the most representative

example of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). It is a

standard that covers several PHY layers and one

MAC layer, aiming to give low rate network service

to devices with low capacity batteries. Expected

battery operation time is 4 to 6 months for button

batteries. Data rates were defined to 250Kbps at

maximum, but lower data rates are possible by

choosing the appropriate PHY layer or changing the

MAC parameters. Communications security is

ensured by AES encryption and coexistence is

solved by channel selection and features such as

quality of service or noise carrier sensing help to

avoid busy channels. Location information is

possible through triangulation of RSSI (as

implemented in Chipcon CC2431 chips), as in

Merrett (2008). Network topologies allowed are

centralized (star topology with a network master) or

Ad-Hoc (peer to peer communications without

master). In star topology, beacon enabled

communications make possible to reserve

transmission slots, guaranteeing data rates and

making soft real time applications possible.

802.15.4 is the base of Zigbee that tries to give a

complete solution (with more layers and profiles) to

low-rate, low-power personal area networks. A

profile is a set of protocols and definitions (such as

type of messages, IDs, etc) that must be

implemented in case of adopting a specific profile in

order to achieve interoperability between devices.

One example of this is the recently approved Zigbee

Health Care Profile, which offers an open standard

for health monitoring and management devices,

offering a wide variety of health-care oriented

services and protocols.

3 TESTING SCENARIO

Doñana National Park, see Doñana (1994) reference,

in Andalusia occupies the right bank of the

Guadalquivir River at its estuary on the Atlantic

Ocean. It is notable for the great diversity of its

biotopes, especially lagoons, marshlands, fixed and

mobile dunes, scrub woodland and maquis. The

faunal inventory includes 8 species of fish, 10

amphibians, 19 reptile, 30 mammal and 360 bird. It

is one of the largest heronries in the Mediterranean

region and is the wintering site for more than 500K

water fowl each year. Doñana National Park has

been a testing ground for conservation in Spain and

has become very well known throughout Europe due

to the controversies faced there and the innovative

management approaches that have been taken. It is

the only protected area that is not only a National

Park but also a Ramsar site, a Biosphere Reserve as

well as a European Community Special Protection

Area. It is also known as the site which triggered the

foundation of WWF in 1961.

The Doñana Scientific Reserve (DBR) is made

up by two estates with a surface area of 10,000

hectares, included in the 50,000 hectares of Doñana

National Park.

This area includes 4 large ecosystems: beaches,

dunes, scrubland, and marshland. The fauna includes

41 species of ants, 7 of freshwater fish, 30 of estuary

fish, 11 of amphibians, 19 of reptiles and 20 of

mammals. DBR has an important infrastructure for

scientific research: accommodation rooms, field

laboratories, a fleet of 4 wheel-drive cars, horses,

boats; and personnel.

In april 2006, the Interministerial Commission of

Science and Technology (CICYT) part of the

Ministry of Education and Science approved the

recognition as Singular Scientific and Technological

Infrastructure (ICTS) to the Scientific Reserve of

Doñana. ICTS was created with two objectives: (a)

providing modern communications and scientific

equipments infrastructure to the Reserve in order to

allow the standardization and automation of

monitoring natural processes, and for developing

research activities that could not be possible without

the ICTS. And (b) providing access to these facilities

and welcoming to the scientific community to

develop research activities.

The ICTS is equipped with an extensive

audiovisual network for monitoring; a meteorology

TECHNICAL VIABILITY STUDY FOR BEHAVIORAL MONITORING OF WILDLIFE ANIMALS IN DOÑANA - An

802.15.4 Coverage Study in a Natural Park

and microclimatology monitoring network;

atmospheric measurements equipments; hydrology

and limnology; geomorphology; flora and vegetation

natural process monitoring; wildlife census; flow of

water and CO2; knowledge of the land on which sits

the vegetation; geolocalization through various

schemes like FindAve (GPRS and Wifi), RTLS over

Wifi, RFID, ultrasound or harmonic radar detectors.

Several 802.11 antennas warranty coverage for

wireless internet access inside the Reserve.

In order to study the viability of the

communications for wildlife monitoring, two

different 802.15.4 frequencies has been tested in this

work: 2.4GHz and 868MHz with different

transmission power and protocol standards: ZigBee

2.4GHz 10mW and XBee 868MHz 300mW

Four main zones of the Reserve were selected for

the study: Ojillo (blue route in figure 1): is a forest

zone, relatively plane; Santa Olalla (pink route in

figure 1): lagoon zone very close to dunes with low

density of vegetation; Humedales (red route in

figure 1): completely open zone, more than 15Km of

free obstacles floodplain, but completely dry area

during our study; and Dunas (purple route in figure

1): this area is close to the sea. There are dunes that

are shifting.

4 RESULTS

Figure 1 shows a google map of Doñana. The map

shows several routes for the coverage study.

Two coverage tests have been performed for

Texas ZigBee 2.4GHz and low power ZigBee

transceivers. First one was done in a relatively open

field (at Santa Olalla), and another on a tree zone

(Ojillo). The maximum coverage range measured

was around 250m and 60m respectively. This is due

not only to the power of transmission but also to the

absorption property of 2.4 GHz signals versus

868MHz signals. 2.4GHz signal is more absorbed by

vegetation than 868MHz.

868MHz XBee coverage study consisted in

testing the efficiency of the link between two XBee

transceivers at 868MHz and 300mW transmission

power. In the Palace of Doñana there is a 25 meters

high tower. In this tower we set up the base-station

for the measurements (bottom yellow point in figure

1). The base-station equipment was composed by

one XBee mote connected to a laptop through USB

and a software application written in C# is used in

order to manage information between motes. This

software application contains functions, procedures

and state machines to implement the communication

through XBee. Once the software application is

running, it sends a broadcast packet asking for mote

discovery, and then it keeps waiting for answers.

When at least one mote have been discovered, and

using a software timer, the first mote will

continuously be transmitting information using a

point to point link to the just discovered mote,

transmitting one packet per second. Furthermore, the

XBee transceiver is able to make remote AT

commands request, this feature is used by tower

mote for requesting information about the power of

last received radio packet for each timer overflow.

Power radio reception measurement is returned to

tower mote as a dB magnitude. Thank to the use of

application software, we can characterize the quality

and radio power of the transceiver links for the

Doñana Biological Reserve scenario.

Figure 1: Google map of Biological Reserve of Doñana.

Blue route from Palacio to Matalascañas route ended

around Ojillo. Pink route from Palacio to Dunes. Purple

route on Dunes. Green and red routes on Humedales.

The second mote consists on an XBee 868 MHz

transceiver at 300mW connected to a

microcontroller. The microcontroller is continuously

retransmitting the same incoming packet. Therefore,

the tower mote will receive the same transmitted

packet with information about the signal intensity in

dB thanks to the use of AT commands supported by

XBee transceiver. During the different tested routes

we have taken the GPS coordinates at each point of

each route of figure 1. At these points we have

measured the signal intensity in dB of the link on the

tower side for two different position of the mote (2m

high and 0.5m high). Figure 2 shows a graph per

each significant route. It can be seen that the signal

is quite good for really open fields (Humedales),

obtaining a coverage range of up to 13Km, while for

tree zones (Ojillo), the coverage rage decreases to

6Km and the signal intensity increases when

measurements are made in a dense tree zone. At

DCNET 2011 - International Conference on Data Communication Networking

100

Dunas zone we realized that the signal is lost

immediately when measuring from the tower mote

(pink route), so we moved both XBee motes to

Dunes zone and we obtained around 0.8 Km. Results

of this zone are presented on figure 2 bottom.

Figure 2: Signal reception in dB for Matalascañas route

(blue on map), Humedales (wetlands) (red on map) and

Dunes (purple on map).

5 CONCLUSIONS

This work presents a communications study in a

free-building scenario (Doñana Biological Park).

This study was carried out in various areas of the

park (named above) to test how terrain and weather

conditions changes affect the results. Due to the

thick vegetation of the park, the signal emitted in 2.4

GHz was easily absorbed, reducing link distances

and, therefore, significant results have been undergo

using 868 Mhz transmissions.

The equipment used, with 300mW of power,

reaches distances of several kilometres. In this way,

natural habitat is not contaminated with lots of nodes

through the park (2 or 3 points could cover DBR).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work has been in part sustained by the RDB-

ICTS 39/2010 Second Call Access 2009-2010 ICTS-

RBD (http://icts.ebd.csic.es/ListarConvocatoriasActi

on.do)

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