HudzonHawk said:
You mean placing a number of RDFs at different corners of the forest and using the angles to find out the locations of the animals?
What is the maximum number of animals such a method would support? How many and how far would the RDFs need to be from each other for optimum results and the best approximation?
Not too dense, but there are still patches with lots of trees. Lots of clearings, too.
It's mostly a flat terrain.
Deer mostly, and other animals about the same size. What kind of transmitter do you think would suit best?
OHHH!!!
This was my senior design project, albeit far more complicated.
You probably want to go for a 144-216 Mhz wildlife tracking system, the long wavelength allows for better penetration and more available power at Rx. The receiving an antenna would probably be a yagi-uda-for its sharp directionality/gain.
The device on the animal would have to be a low power (few mW) transmitter. It would probably send out modulated pulses(PAM), to minimize current drain. It'll act like a radio beacon. The limitations, would be size, elemental protection, power and antenna type-uses loops or monopoles.
To my acknowledgement, you can track as many animals as you want. However, this is limited to the number of channels you have on your receiver and the tuning frequency of the Tx. if you have three channels, you can track up to three animals on each separate band. There is probably multi-channel techniques to conserve bandwidth and increase the amount of users per channel, but that complicates everything and costs alot of dough.
The receiver emits audible blips, this aids you in finding the animal. faster rep rate and loudness.
I would suggest using an array/multiple receivers to track the animals and get a vector position on their location. The more the better but so is the $$$$$.
The accuracy depends...on the gain of the antenna.
You must adjust the gain as low as possible(barely hear an audible tone) to home in on the target's probable location. The range is a few km/miles. This all depends on power and terrain. But in a wooden area, flat, no mountains, You can pick up signals, several km. One interesting note, ham guys are employed by the FCC to find RF pirates. but thats another story.
I suggest going to wildlife track. good place. let me know!!!