Wireless For Frogs And Mice

On Monday I heard a presentation about Quail Ridge Reserve, one of the University of California natural reserves that is administered by UC Davis. Quail Ridge sticks out as a peninsula into Lake Berryessa, about 40 kilometers west of here. Quail Ridge Reserve has gone hi-tech. In a collaboration with the computer science department, the reserve managers have set up towers and repeaters to create a wireless mesh network covering much of the reserve. The technology used is the standard wireless found in many a laptop, but the environment and scale of the network is of a degree to make the project interesting to computer scientists.

Putting a natural reserve on the Internet leads to some neat possibilities. One researcher, who left UC Davis for a position at the University of Michigan, can continue to monitor the calling of frogs he was studying in real time. Webcams have been set up that can be reoriented over the net, looking for foxes, mountain lions, and snakes. And plans are afoot to set up a triangulation network that will enable tracking of critters such as radio-collared mice down to accuracies of less than a meter. The only other such triangulation network is at Barro Colorado Island in Panama, with much less favorable topography.