AniTrack: A Power-Efficient, Time-Slotted and Robust UWB Localization System for Animal Tracking in a Controlled Setting

2025-05-30

AI Summary

To address the limitations of conventional Ultra-Wideband (UWB) animal tracking systems—namely, dependence on mains-powered base stations and poor deployment flexibility and scalability—this paper proposes a fully battery-operated, low-power UWB localization system tailored for long-term, high-accuracy monitoring of large animals (e.g., Galápagos tortoises) in complex environments such as tropical zoos. The system introduces a time-slotted single-sided two-way ranging (SS-TWR) protocol to enable coordinated energy savings between anchors and tags. It further integrates anchor self-localization, LoRaWAN-based long-range data backhaul, time-slotted scheduling, a self-calibrating positioning algorithm, and energy-aware firmware. Experimental evaluation in a 600 m² testbed achieves a mean localization accuracy of 13.96 cm, with per-anchor and per-tag power consumption of only 20.44 mW and 7.19 mW, respectively, enabling 25 days of continuous operation. A 10-anchor–2-tag deployment demonstrates stable operation within a tropical biosphere, validating feasibility for large-scale field deployment.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Intelligent Robots: Localization, Mapping, and Navigation
• Multiagent Systems: Teamwork

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User privacy protection in personalized systems

Abstract

Accurate localization is essential for a wide range of applications, including asset tracking, smart agriculture, and an- imal monitoring. While traditional localization methods, such as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), offer varying levels of accuracy and coverage, they have drawbacks regarding power consumption, infrastruc- ture requirements, and deployment flexibility. Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is emerging as an alternative, offering centimeter-level accuracy and energy efficiency, especially suitable for medium to large field monitoring with capabilities to work indoors and outdoors. However, existing UWB localization systems require infrastructure with mains power to supply the anchors, which impedes their scalability and ease of deployment. This under- scores the need for a fully battery-powered and energy-efficient localization system. This paper presents an energy-optimized, battery-operated UWB localization system that leverages Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) for data transmission to a server backend. By employing single-sided two-way ranging (SS-TWR) in a time- slotted localization approach, the power consumption both on the anchor and the tag is reduced, while maintaining high accuracy. With a low average power consumption of 20.44 mW per anchor and 7.19 mW per tag, the system allows fully battery- powered operation for up to 25 days, achieving average accuracy of 13.96 cm with self-localizing anchors on a 600 m2 testing ground. To validate its effectiveness and ease of installation in a challenging application scenario, ten anchors and two tags were successfully deployed in a tropical zoological biome where they could be used to track Aldabra Giant Tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea).

Problem

• Develops a battery-powered UWB system for animal tracking
• Reduces power consumption in anchors and tags using SS-TWR
• Achieves high accuracy in controlled large-scale environments

Innovation

• Battery-operated UWB with LoRaWAN for data transmission
• Time-slotted SS-TWR for reduced power consumption
• Self-localizing anchors enable scalable deployment