In the System Level Integration Practical we were given the opportunity to work on an application of our choice, using the ProSpeckz II hardware platform. We selected an animal behaviour monitoring system which we believe demonstrates well the potential of Speck devices for distributed data acquisition.

Animal behaviour studies contribute not just to our knowledge of other species, but also to our awareness of changes in the environment, and to evolutionary and comparative theories of human psychology.

Many behaviour studies have used radio transmitters fitted to animals, allowing individuals to be tracked in the wild by zoologists using directional antennas and other equipment. This approach however is highly time consuming, requires the disturbance of the animals' behaviour by entering their habitats, and can only provide limited information.

In a previous project ("ZebraNet") at Princeton University, devices incorporating data storage, GPS receivers and radios were attached to zebras in the wild in order to monitor their movements. Each device was capable of receiving and relaying data from others, allowing information from the whole population to be captured by a small number of mobile or static listening stations.

The ZebraNet hardware was comparatively large and heavy (500g), mostly due to batteries and solar cells to support its high power requirements. It would be impossible to use for smaller animals. We set out to show that the same task could be accomplished with much more modest hardware, in the form of the ProSpeckz II.

We demonstrated a complete working system with multiple "animal" specks logging and sharing data, and transmitting to a PC via a fixed base station. We record temperature, movement activity and proximity to other animals; the latter in particular is extremely valuable data for behavioural studies as it provides important clues to social behaviour.

By using data compression techniques we are able to store a surprising amount of information in the spare capacity of the ProSpeckz flash ROM. At a sampling interval of one minute around seven days' data can be stored per speck. Our results are logged in a database and can be reviewed and graphed through a simple web interface.