Smart sensors for small rodent observation

Working towards the observation of rats (and other small rodents) in the wild we have developed tools that will enable us to study their behavior using a wireless network of wearable sensor nodes. The space and weight constraints resulting from the size of the animals have led to simple but functional approaches for vocalization classification and position estimation. For the resulting data we have developed novel, delay-tolerant routing and collection strategies. These are expected to be used in a sparse, dynamic network resulting from various rats being tagged with our nodes and running around freely - an area that will eventually be too big to be covered solely by stationary data sinks. Furthermore, the system is designed to extract information on the social interactions between animals from the routing data. It currently works in an indoor environment and we are preparing it for tests in a controlled outdoor setup.