Migration routes and stopover sites of Black-necked Cranes determined by satellite tracking

Because their breeding and wintering areas are in remote locations, little is known about the biology of Black-necked Cranes (Grus nigricollis), including their migratory behavior. Using satellite telemetry, we monitored the migration of Black-necked Cran

Localization and tracking of phonating finless porpoises using towed stereo acoustic data-loggers

Cetaceans produce sound signals frequently. Usually, acoustic localization of cetaceans was made by cable hydrophone arrays and multichannel recording systems. In this study, a simple and relatively inexpensive towed acoustic system consisting of two miniature stereo acoustic data-loggers is described for localization and tracking of finless porpoises in a mobile survey. Among 204 porpoises detected acoustically, 34 individuals (similar to 17%) were localized, and 4 of the 34 localized individuals were tracked. The accuracy of the localization is considered to be fairly high, as the upper bounds of relative distance errors were less than 41% within 173 m. With the location information, source levels of finless porpoise clicks were estimated to range from 180 to 209 dB re 1 mu Pa pp at 1 m with an average of 197 dB (N=34), which is over 20 dB higher than that estimated previously from animals in enclosed waters. For the four tracked porpoises, two-dimensional swimming trajectories relative to the moving survey boat, absolute swimming speed, and absolute heading direction are deduced by assuming the animal movements are straight and at constant speed in the segment between two consecutive locations.

Pipeline Architecture and Parallel Computation-Based Real-Time Stereovision Tracking System for Surgical Navigation

This paper studies the development of a real-time stereovision system to track multiple infrared markers attached to a surgical instrument. Multiple stages of pipeline in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) are developed to recognize the targets in both left and right image planes and to give each target a unique label. The pipeline architecture includes a smoothing filter, an adaptive threshold module, a connected component labeling operation, and a centroid extraction process. A parallel distortion correction method is proposed and implemented in a dual-core DSP. A suitable kinematic model is established for the moving targets, and a novel set of parallel and interactive computation mechanisms is proposed to position and track the targets, which are carried out by a cross-computation method in a dual-core DSP. The proposed tracking system can track the 3-D coordinate, velocity, and acceleration of four infrared markers with a delay of 9.18 ms. Furthermore, it is capable of tracking a maximum of 110 infrared markers without frame dropping at a frame rate of 60 f/s. The accuracy of the proposed system can reach the scale of 0.37 mm RMS along the x- and y-directions and 0.45 mm RMS along the depth direction (the depth is from 0.8 to 0.45 m). The performance of the proposed system can meet the requirements of applications such as surgical navigation, which needs high real time and accuracy capability.

Pipeline Architecture and Parallel Computation-Based Real-Time Stereovision Tracking System for Surgical Navigation

This paper studies the development of a real-time stereovision system to track multiple infrared markers attached to a surgical instrument. Multiple stages of pipeline in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) are developed to recognize the targets in both left and right image planes and to give each target a unique label. The pipeline architecture includes a smoothing filter, an adaptive threshold module, a connected component labeling operation, and a centroid extraction process. A parallel distortion correction method is proposed and implemented in a dual-core DSP. A suitable kinematic model is established for the moving targets, and a novel set of parallel and interactive computation mechanisms is proposed to position and track the targets, which are carried out by a cross-computation method in a dual-core DSP. The proposed tracking system can track the 3-D coordinate, velocity, and acceleration of four infrared markers with a delay of 9.18 ms. Furthermore, it is capable of tracking a maximum of 110 infrared markers without frame dropping at a frame rate of 60 f/s. The accuracy of the proposed system can reach the scale of 0.37 mm RMS along the x- and y-directions and 0.45 mm RMS along the depth direction (the depth is from 0.8 to 0.45 m). The performance of the proposed system can meet the requirements of applications such as surgical navigation, which needs high real time and accuracy capability.