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Object Tracker 1

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Alan Lowbands

Alan Lowbands

Aerospace
May 17, 2017
274
Hi,
I was hoping someone may be able to help.
I need to find a way to track small objects in long grass.
The tag or transmitter has to be able to be mounted on a snails shell and needs to be detectable within a few metres.
I have looked at RFID and NFC tags but there either too big or don't have the range.
As a mechanical engineer I haven't a clue if this is possible or not.
I'm not mad, it's a school science project. :)

Any help would be really appreciated.

thanks
Alan
 
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Most RFID tag solutions fit on the tip of your finger (antenna and all)... how small do you need?! You may be waving a huge flag if you're talking about tracking snails that are the size of your pinky, but beyond that size shoudln't be as big of an issue.


Dan - Owner
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Hi MacGyverS200, thanks for the reply.
I've not actually seen them but apparently there quite large.
The idea is, to be able to find them in the grass/plants and identify each by it's tag.
I thought of NFC tags as there quite cheap but I have read that the range is very limited. a few inches max.
What would be perfect would be a tag that can be read by a smartphone (Bluetooth ?) when its with a couple of meters.
worse case is some foil glued to he shell and a metal detector. Bit rubbish though for 2018...
 
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Less than a single inch, actually, and generally close to 1/2" for read distance. They expect you to pass these guys by a scanner, which doesn't allow for a lot of energy to be transmitted back from the tag. If you're looking for distance (i.e., more than 1/2"), you need an active solution... this will require some form of energy storage (like a battery or supercap), an RF and controller chip of some form, etc. If this is going on a typical backyard snail, they probably would tip over [wink] You're not going to control and area even close to the size of a backyard with any passive solution.

ows_137400113044165_hlbcg9.jpg


Dan - Owner
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What kind of accuracy and what kind of coverage?

I'm thinking you could embed the reader antennas in/on the ground, and you need lots of them with some sort of multiplexing scheme. The RFID cards that are embedded in my ski pass use readers with antennas that are possibly 1 ft away with 4ft x 1ft antenna area.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Thanks,
I was just an idea, admittedly a stupid one :)
Would an RFID tag work or is it just another name for NFC ?
As you can see I know absolutely nothing about electronics.
It's a project about animal management for the future and how farmers will care for and locate animals such as sheep that may wonder over a large area using GPS tags.
I thought that it could be done on a smaller scale using snails as they don't usually run too fast. (except the one above).
We shall go away and think of something else for her project.

thanks guys
alan
 
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They are similar in nature, but use different RF frequencies and different chips. In general RFID devices have longer ranges, as the original intent was for things like inventory checking, which requires more range than NFC for point of sale (POS).

GPS tags for this purpose exist already, but most of they seem to be battery powered, and therefore have limited life. For active animals, some sort of kinetic charger could certainly be contemplated for keeping the battery charged. The challenge in that instance has more to do with radio coverage and signal strength, but for someone with wherewithal, they could possibly install RF repeaters in their range.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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I don't think they'd fit on a snail but there are lots of asset trackers out there that could work for larger animals. If you search for 'asset tracker' or 'bike tracker' you might find a good solution.

If you want to DIY, Particle has a few versions of tracking kit that could work for you. They use phone networks so there needs to be coverage where you want to use them and you have to pay monthly subscription but it's only about a few dollars a month.

iota is a good looking ready made option. Their network is made of base stations that customers install. If you want a network over a farmer's large property, you could probably buy extra base stations to cover it.

Note: I have no affiliation with either of these companies and there seem to be lots of other options, just noted them as favorites when I was working on a similar project.
 
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If it is a dark yard dab a bit of florescent paint that fluoresces in black light on each snail shell.
Hang a black light above the yard. Use a video or still camera to do time-lapse. You don't need individual tracking if you have all of one's moves recorded as the path provides the identification.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
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Cheers guys,
your input has been really appreciated.
I really thought it would be easy tag them and track them down with a smartphone or some kind of detector.
Maybe I should come back in 20 or 30 years :)
I like the paint and time-laps idea but the project was to be able to track down the snail not track its movements.

thanks again
Alan
 
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Glue, string, helium balloon.

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past." Douglas Adams
 
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"I like the paint and time-laps idea but the project was to be able to track down the snail not track its movements."

You could use different colored paints for different snails. There's bound to be a ImageJ or Python script for find specific colors in an image.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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The km-scale communications aspect of these sorts of applications (well the sheep, not the snails) could probably be addressed with something like LoRa.

Localization could be with GPS, or trying LoRa ranging (which still seems to be an immature technology).

The LoRa communications link can be two-way, and so the on-board (on-sheep) GPS could be remote controlled to reduce power consumption by means of low duty cycle (turned on just when required).

Energy consumption over the long term could be addressed with long-life batteries, perhaps augmented with solar cells. It would almost certainly be very difficult to achieve a reliable one-year life. The modules could relay their battery state back to Sheep HQ.

Using snails as your Proof of Concept is probably not a good approach. Too many of the technologies that might be feasible on larger livestock (sheep) simply would not scale well down to tiny creatures such as snails. It'd be much easier to go directly to sheep. Tracking sheep (with GPS and LoRa) is either feasible now, or it's very close. Battery life would be the primary issue.

This would not be a 100% solution. For example, the sheep-borne LoRa modules may have limited radio range after being chewed up by a coyote. Point being, sheep would still go missing.
 
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Thanks VE1BLL,
I think I understand what you mean.
What I’m tying to do though is help my daughter with her science project.
She’s 12 lol.
It was just an idea we had.
If there was some way to boost the range of the nfc tags we only need to get to about a meter.
Or is there a way to build an extension like a metal detector to get closer to the tag.
I think we need a new idea for another project as this one seems way to difficult for me :)
 
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Even if you had one paint color, a simple morse code pattern of dots and dashes could be used as unique identifiers per animal. Or barcodes, if your paintbrush is fine enough.
 
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How about this technology? Used to track small frogs in the wild. Might be too expensive for a 12 year olds science project though.
 
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"Glue, string, helium balloon" might add a new dimension to the tracking problem.

How big are the snails? NFC tags are pretty big in accordance with the frequency being used, but NFC readers are designed for short range use. Their cousins, RFID tags, are used as 'inventory control' at store fronts, covering widths of 10 feet or more, so getting that range is not a problem by switching to RFID. They don't provide location, only presence information.

If only presence information is required, using retroreflective tape would work on even small items. I have often located tiny spiders by the reflections from their eyes, as long as they are facing me; a limitation that tape does not have. Moving the lamp and viewer/camera offsets obscuration by grass leaves. Once located, they can be identified with paint spots of varying color or size.

see:
 
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Yeah, didn't catch the later mention of larger animals... totally changes the problem set, IMO.

Forget about NFC... the name itself should be a clue it won't work (Near-Field Communications). You need to be really close to get enough energy to the tags to get anything back.

For large animals that roam, an active solution is the best.

Dan - Owner
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