CARNIVORE: A Disruption-Tolerant System for Studying Wildlife

This paper presents CARNIVORE, a system for in-situ, yet unobtrusive monitoring of cryptic, difficult-to-catch/observe wildlife in their natural habitat. CARNIVORE consists of a network of mobile and static nodes that have sensing, processing, storage, and wireless communication capabilities. One of CARNIVORE\´S notable novel features is its robustness to intermittent node connectivity since, depending on the wildlife being studied, the network can be quite sparse and therefore disconnected frequently for arbitrarily long periods of time. Field tests show that the "collar" can transmit data at 60 kbps within a range of 50-200 meters. Its Li D-cell battery provides the collar with a lifespan of 50-100 days during which it can collect and transmit 1GB of data. The latest version of the CARNIVORE node has been packaged in a collar and deployed on mountain lions. The collected accelerometer and GPS data shows that the system is a viable and useful tool for wildlife research.