Animal Tracking System with Relative Position Display
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional GPS animal tracking systems lack the ability to provide a real-time, graphical representation of an animal's location and direction relative to a user, with adjustable scales and historical movement data, which limits their effectiveness in tracking and navigation.
Innovation Solution
An animal tracking system comprising a GPS-enabled device for the animal and a user device that calculates and displays the animal's location and direction using GPS data, with a graphical representation that adjusts in real-time and includes historical movement data points, allowing for intuitive tracking and navigation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional GPS animal tracking systems provide only numeric location data, then the system is simple and easy to operate, but the user cannot intuitively understand the animal's location and direction relative to themselves
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms one-dimensional numeric GPS coordinates into a two-dimensional graphical display showing the animal's position on a map relative to the user's position. This dimensional transformation allows users to visually comprehend spatial relationships, directions, and distances without mentally processing coordinate data.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a visual copy of the real-world spatial relationship between user and animal through a graphical map representation. This visual copy includes directional indicators and relative positioning that mirror the actual physical scenario, making the information immediately comprehensible.
2Reliability
If the tracking system displays a fixed scale, then the display is simple and stable, but the animal may go outside the visible area and cannot be tracked when moving far from the user
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic scale that automatically adjusts based on the animal's distance from the user. When the animal moves beyond the fixed display area, the system dynamically modifies the scale factor to maintain the animal within the visible portion of the screen, ensuring continuous tracking capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors the animal's position relative to the display boundaries and provides feedback by adjusting the scale accordingly. This closed-loop control ensures the animal remains visible while adapting to changing distances between user and animal.
3Loss of information
If the system displays all historical location data points, then complete movement history is preserved, but the display becomes cluttered and difficult to interpret
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the most relevant historical location data points for display, rather than showing all recorded positions. By selectively displaying key waypoints and significant movement points, the system preserves essential movement history information while maintaining a clean, interpretable visual display.
Data Source
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AI summary
Systems and methods of tracking an animal including a first device worn by an animal to acquire global positioning system (GPS) data corresponding to a location of the animal, and a second device carried by a user to receive the GPS data from the first device and to acquire GPS data corresponding to a location of the second device. The second device can include a compass element to provide a compass reading corresponding to an orientation of the second device, and a controller to calculate location and direction information of the first device relative to the second device, and a display unit to display a graphical representation indicating the location and direction of the first device relative to the second device.