Meeting Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), frequently referred to as drones have become more common and affordable and are a promising tool for providing position and speed data for free ranging wild animals. There are challenges however since the camera payload is small, the UAV does not remain in a fixed position even under autopilot control due to GPS position noise and the platform changes orientation when stabilising its position. We evaluated a modified Tarot UAV platform, a GoPro camera and Laser range finder to estimate speeds, acceleration and track of moving animals on the ground. In order to validate the accuracy of the system we determine distances between key visual marker positions on the ground using the UAV system and independently with a survey grade dual frequency GPS system. Furthermore we compared video tracked positions of a dog running in the target area wearing a high sample rate raw data GPS/IMU collar to measure the accuracy of data generated from tracking a manoeuvring target.
