Mataki

One of the bases of scientific work on animal species that inhabit the surface of the globe is the study of their movements Which is especially complex to do in living beings in freedom, and even more so when they fly.

Mataki is a device developed under the umbrella of Microsoft Search, the University of London and the Zoological Society of London, which has managed to squeeze in just over 8 grams and less than 5 centimeters long, an electronic system capable of locating its position in space instantly by means of a GPS receiver, and saving the data in an internal memory waiting to be downloaded back to base.

A small device for a gigantic task

Understanding how species behavior changes over time is vital to species protection and conservation. This becomes critical for those species that are vulnerable to changes in the environment, such as the response of global ecosystems to climate change and human activity.

In particular, understanding the movement and spatial dynamics of individuals, the interactions between them and their environment, and the spatial locations and patterns that are important to species survival is vital. However, established techniques for studying the movement and behavior of individual animals are generally limited, ineffective, and expensive.

These - the technologies - are often expensive, inflexible and inappropriate (by size, scope, functionality or weight); This limits the applicability and scale of ecological and behavioral studies.Furthermore, even when the data is collected, there are few tools and applications that allow data to be analyzed with ease and precision, allowing the development and testing of predictive models.

Consequently, we understand very little about the behavior of most species, and even less about how their behavior is changing as the environment undergoes transformations.

Mataki, open platform both in hardware and software

Mataki is an open, reconfigurable, tracking platform, with flexible technology, with support for low-cost wireless communications; and a set of computer tools that deal with almost all of these problems. This technology is designed to allow researchers to conduct scientific studies that were previously impossible, collect new types of data, and use novel types of analyses.

Each Mataki device is compact in size (43 x 21 x 7mm) and weighs 8g without battery; being equipped with a microcontroller, a memory, a radio transceiver, the GPS receiver, the antenna, and a light sensor.

The current version of the devices allows recording GPS information (configurable up to 10 Hz) with a precision of 2.5 m; and the incorporation of triaxial accelerometers is currently being studied, as well as a new pressure sensor to replace the current sensor that has become obsolete.

These data are stored in the internal memory waiting to be exported wirelessly through an application as well-known as Putty , and be loaded into the applications that have been developed for the project.

Some of the components can be disabled to further reduce power consumption, allowing the device to run in low power mode for longer.

To this we must add the advantage that the cost estimated by the manufacturer to build our own device, acquiring all the materials, does not exceed €130 .

And we must not forget that both the designs, the hardware and the software are offered under an Open Source license. This means that you can use and modify them completely freely and without paying any type of roy alty.

Real World Uses

Initially it has focused on the migratory and feeding behavior of pelagic seabirds, but the possibilities are enormous in the field of zoology, ecology and all field sciences where monitoring is required detail of the movements of the observed subject.

I've always been embarrassed to see a wolf or a bear with those huge radio collars, which can disappear forever from documentaries with this small technological development.

Or we can consider it as another Internet of Things device , which arouses so much expectation among analysts of the future of our lives digital, since among its capabilities is being able to send and receive information from another Mataki, potentially configuring it as sensor networks.

Imagine an experiment like that of rubber ducks, but with devices that record their movements through the oceans dragged by marine currents.

Tracking Device Anatomy from Robin Freeman on Vimeo.

In XatakaWindows | The future according to Microsoft More information | Mataki.org