Bluetooth Technology
A Literature Review of Recent Developments in Bluetooth networking and Animal Tracking and Monitoring.
Bradley Clayton
Introduction Technology already tracks or monitors animals, people, vehicles and other objects to eliminate the need for constant human observation. These technologies need to be small, economical and consume a minimal amount of power. Bluetooth technology is being used extensively in hand-held devices and wireless computing [Pico Communications] because of its characteristics mentioned above. This project aims to use Bluetooth technology to monitor and track animals in the wild. More specifically, this project deals with the off-loading of data from a device situated on an animal. The aim of this literature survey is to investigate the Bluetooth technology, focusing on routing in Bluetooth networks, as well as current animal tracking and monitoring technologies. Current technologies used in tracking and monitoring Many of these projects make use of the Global Positioning System (GPS), Global System for Mobile (GSM) or directional radio transmission tracking. One of them is described in “Save the Elephants” GSM tracking project, sponsored by Safari.com in Kenya, which makes use of the GPS system to gather locational information of tags placed on elephants [Douglas-Hamilton, I. et al (February 2004)]. These tags also have GSM modules that allow the locational data to be downloaded periodically. Objectives of this project are to develop small tags that have a long battery life, are cheap and light. Before the safari.com project, VHF (Very High Frequency) radio was used to download the GPS data from the animals about every 3 months. Sending data using VHF requires a large amount
of power consumption, hence downloads were only done every three months. GSM technology lowers this power consumption enabling more regular data retrieval. Data, such as that elephants usually travel about 10km a day but can walk 30km or more, was collected using this
Bradley Clayton
Introduction Technology already tracks or monitors animals, people, vehicles and other objects to eliminate the need for constant human observation. These technologies need to be small, economical and consume a minimal amount of power. Bluetooth technology is being used extensively in hand-held devices and wireless computing [Pico Communications] because of its characteristics mentioned above. This project aims to use Bluetooth technology to monitor and track animals in the wild. More specifically, this project deals with the off-loading of data from a device situated on an animal. The aim of this literature survey is to investigate the Bluetooth technology, focusing on routing in Bluetooth networks, as well as current animal tracking and monitoring technologies. Current technologies used in tracking and monitoring Many of these projects make use of the Global Positioning System (GPS), Global System for Mobile (GSM) or directional radio transmission tracking. One of them is described in “Save the Elephants” GSM tracking project, sponsored by Safari.com in Kenya, which makes use of the GPS system to gather locational information of tags placed on elephants [Douglas-Hamilton, I. et al (February 2004)]. These tags also have GSM modules that allow the locational data to be downloaded periodically. Objectives of this project are to develop small tags that have a long battery life, are cheap and light. Before the safari.com project, VHF (Very High Frequency) radio was used to download the GPS data from the animals about every 3 months. Sending data using VHF requires a large amount
of power consumption, hence downloads were only done every three months. GSM technology lowers this power consumption enabling more regular data retrieval. Data, such as that elephants usually travel about 10km a day but can walk 30km or more, was collected using this
References: Douglas-Hamilton I & Douglas-Hamilton O. (2004) Save the elephants GSM Animal Tracking Project, Nairobi, Kenya. Hostetter, Janet. (April 2003) “Animal-tracking chips now let you in on how Fido is feeling”, USA Today on the Web. Alterovitz Ron. (2001) Message Routing Over a (Bluetooth) Scatternet, Computer Science Department, California Institute of Technology. Pico Communications Online, (November 2002). Bluetooth Networking – Taking Handheld Computing to the Next Level. . Forum Nokia Online, (April 2003) Bluetooth Technology Overview. . Dursch, A & Yen, D, C & Shih, D. (December 2003) Bluetooth technology: an exploratory study of the analysis and implementation frameworks. Miami University, Oxford and National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan. Mehta, A, K & Siu, K. (2001) performance of a new Bluetooth scatternet formation protocol. New York, USA: ACM Press. Mišić, J & Mišić, V, B & Chan, K, L. (February 2004) Performance of Bluetooth bridge scheduling algorithms, University of Manitoba, Canada & Hong King University of Science and Technology, China. Siegemund, F & Rohs, M. (2003) “Rendezvous Layer Protocols for Bluetooth-Enabled Smart Devices”, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Journal. Nordbotten, N, A & Skeie, T & Aakvaag, N, D. (2004) Methods for service discovery in Bluetooth scatternets. Simula Research Laboratory, Lysaker & AAB Corporate Research, Billingstad, Norway. Pico Communications OnLine, White Paper: Bluetooth and Bluetooth Internet Access Points. < www.picocommunications.com>. Potter, B. (November 2003) Wireless-based location tracking. Elsevier Science