Cutting-edge GPS technology

Almost 2 decades have been spent developing our highly innovative technology to produce the lowest power GPS solutions available today. Since 2014 we have tailored and evolved this technology for use in critical wildlife conservation and research projects worldwide. Our new picoFix® GPS technology, now available across our entire product range, provides high-resolution, high-rate and lightweight tracking. Our core GPS technology has been combined with a wide range of features including: wireless communications, solar charging, pressure and depth sensing as well as accelerometry.

picoFix®

picoFix® is the successor to our highly successful nanoFix® GPS technology. For further details of our picoFix® GPS technology, please read here.

Our highly successful picoFix® developments have led to us further reducing the size and weight of the world’s smallest GPS tracking tag. We can now produce fully packaged tags starting at just 0.75g. This 0.75g tag has been successfully deployed on various species including leisler’s bats, nightingales and skylarks. Measuring just 18x11x3mm plus ~50mm external whip antenna, this tag provides up to 320 GPS location attempts depending on species. Burst or continuous accelerometer data capture is available at rates of 1Hz, 12.5Hz, 25Hz or 50Hz.

Other Technologies

From the early days of developing our low-power GPS technology the need for small remote download tags for use in avian tracking projects was clear. The smallest and lightest weight tags can only be realised if the wireless communications component of the system is as optimised for low power operation as the GPS, whilst download ranges and data rates are maximised as much as possible. For details of our custom wireless download capabilities, together with our GSM communications options, please read here.

Solar charging is also a critical component in many of the tracking tags that we produce. Our ever-decreasing tag power requirements resulting from use of our picoFix® GPS technology mean that we can now use ever smaller and lighter weight solar charging options. The solar charging levels achievable in winter conditions now offer the potential for winter tracking of species that have never been able to be tracked previously using GPS during these periods. The vastly reduced power requirements of picoFix® now make this a possibility.

The significant power savings of picoFix® also enable a diverse range of performance benefits to be achieved through production of ever smaller and lighter weight multi-sensor tags with ever greater capacities. We have provided a wide range of logger and wireless download tags that have depth sensing and data logging capabilities for species that dive as deep as 400m. Barometric pressure options are also now available across our product range.

All tags that we produce now have a range of accelerometer data options available. This capability provides access to a wealth of behavioural data to complement the high-resolution, high-rate GPS data that our tags provide, allowing ever greater understanding of species behaviours.

Latest Developments

As an Engineering-led company, continuous innovation of our products is at the forefront of what we do. Several key technological improvements have been made to our products this year. For more information about how these technologies can assist your future research, please click here.