Experimental Tags

Experimental TagsEdit

2017 May 24 - Cornell (Gabrielson & Winkler) tags

These solar-powered tags transmit at 434 MHz and emit a 32-bit ID code.  With the appropriate software update,
one or more Cornell USB Tag XCVRs can be plugged into spare USB ports on an SG,  attached to an appropriate
antenna, and then any tag detections they report will appear on the live web interface, the sensorgnome.org
realtime page (for network-connected receivers) and in data files.  So far, the motus data processing does not
extract these tags, but support is planned.  The software update complements normal operation of the SG, and detection
of Lotek coded ID tags at 166.38 MHz continues as usual.

Tag detections in raw sensorgnome data files look like this:

   T3,1495635412.948,50524F2C
   T2,1495635414.123,55554B2A

where the number after the T is the USB port number, the second field is the timestamp (uncorrected for latency),
and the third field is a 32-bit tag ID in upper-case hexadecimal notation.  These lines are interspersed with detections
of Lotek tag pulses from funcubedongles, and other records.

On the web interface, the Cornell Tab XCVR is listed in the device list, and any tag detections appear in the Live Tags
window, labelled with "Cornell":

On the sensorgnome.org realtime summary page, detections of Cornell tags appear as in
row 6 of the table in this screenshot:

Support for registering Cornell tag deployments and processing SG data for them
is pending.

Support for Cornell tag detections on the SG-Pi platform is also pending.

Cornell XCVR Dongle - considerations

Power consumption:  quick and dirty benchtop measurements show power consumption of
approximately 0.25 W or less, so at most 25% of a single funcubedongle.

Data size: a short field test suggested a 10% increase in raw file size for a single XCVR added to a system
with 3 funcubedongles.

Code stability:  there are only an additional ~20 lines of code active during data acquisition from the XCVR Dongle,
in the file cornelltagxcvr.js  - see function CornellTagXCVR.prototype.gotTag()

RF or other interference:  an 8 hour benchtop test showed no discernable effect on detection rates of a single Lotek tag
active while a USRP simulated a medley of Cornell tags (3 funcubedongles + 1 Cornell XCVR):