Reducing GPS Error for Smart Collars Based on Animal’s Behavior

Abstract

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are successfully used in many fields such as navigation, meteorology, military tasks, mapping, virtual fencing, and more. Smart collars are currently the most convenient device for determining animal location in virtual fencing systems, however; these systems are still suffering from environmental effects and propagation in direct visibility. These types of side effects may reduce the work of GPS receivers. The current article defines a method for improving animal location accuracy using a virtual fence smart collar worn around the animal’s neck by the aid of maximum probability of movement from one point to another. The proposed approach first checks the current position of the animal, and after receiving a GPS signal from satellites it calculates the distance between the two GPS signals. Secondly, the method checks the animal’s behavior for the receiving period of the two points. Finally, the approach calculates a probability of maximum animal movement for the two-point receiving period. If the animal can pass the distance in the time frame of the two signals, then the second signal is taken as the correct position; otherwise, the point is taken which the animal could pass. Real-time animal behavior is classified using Support Vector Machines (SVM). The proposed method was verified within seven days of experiments. Consequently, the proposed approach experiments were sufficiently successful. The recreated locations from our approach appeared very close to the real point. The mean average of passed distance by the marked line decreased to 16.2, 5, 0 m for running, walking, and resting conditions, respectively. On the other hand, the unfiltered geolocations of the GPS receiver, give results significantly further from the animal’s actual position such as 148.8, 182.7, 136.2 m for running, walking, and resting conditions.