U. researcher aims to reinvent ‘critter cam’

For 25 years, National Geographic’s Crittercam — a small device worn on a collar around a wild animal’s neck — has given scientists an animal’s-eye view of the world by capturing video, sound and other data.

Now, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Naomi Leonard ’85 is teaming up with researchers from the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the National Geographic Society to create new and improved Crittercams that will provide scientists with more insight into the group dynamics and behavior of animals.

Nuno Martins, one of the project’s leaders, said that inspiration for Crittercam 2.0 came after he saw a talk by Greg Marshall, National Geographic’s vice president of remote imaging for Crittercam, at the University of Maryland in March 2010.

That summer, Martins and an undergraduate from the University of Maryland worked with Marshall at National Geographic to acquire preliminary results. At the end of the summer, Martins and Marshall decided to proceed with the project.

“We were both really excited and decided to take it to the next step,” Martins said.

Martins and Marshall then invited Leonard, who is an alumna of the University of Maryland’s Clark School, to join the project.

The three devised a research plan that incorporated their multi-disciplinary skills and interests: Marshall will be working with National Geographic to design and create the device, and Martins and Leonard will be working together to develop algorithms to analyze the data.

While the original version of the Crittercam was already an advanced piece of technology, it was not able to communicate with other devices nearby. This will change with the new Crittercam.

“The idea was to implement communication among them because then it can start doing things like trying to figure out which animal in a group of animals is, for instance, the leader,” Martins explained.

He added that one of the project’s goals is to develop algorithms that will make calculations based on the exchange of information received from other Crittercams. This could also save battery life and memory.

“It is much more likely that you will be able to save battery by using the animal that is most sensitive as a trigger,” Martins said.

“If the animal starts running or behaves like it has detected a threat, then it would send information to other cameras and start recording.”

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Already, the Crittercam promises to help researchers understand what is decimating populations of endangered species.

An environmental protection agency belonging to the Canadian government has volunteered to test the first prototypes of the device to record predators’ attacks on caribou.

The rare, close-up footage captured by the Crittercams may then be made public, which could help promote the protection of endangered animals.

“The holy grail would be to capture on video one of those predator attacks,” Martins said.

The research project, titled “Remote Imaging of Community Ecology via Animal-borne Wireless Networks,” was awarded $1.8 million in funding from the National Science Foundation in September and will extend over four years with a possible fifth year extension.

The grant will be split among the three groups. The Princeton University and Clark School research teams will each receive $400,000 to develop and evaluate the algorithms for the devices, and the remaining $1 million will go to National Geographic to design and create the equipment.