Investigation of an Autonomous Tracking System for Localization of Radio-Tagged Flying Insects

The tracking of flying insects is one of the main challenges in the field of ecosystem and biodiversity protection. In the case of invasive insects such as Asian hornets, extensive considerations must be made in estimating the habitat because of the limitations of available sensors and environmental uncertainty. In this study, we propose an approach for localizing and autonomously tracking radio-tagged flying insects and developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based robotic system. The extended Kalman filter is applied to the received signal strength emitted from a radio telemetry transmitter to estimate the insect’s position while reducing the measurement error and noise. The proposed autonomous tracking strategy involves a method in which the UAV rotates around one point to measure the signal strength and control its position in relation to the direction of the strongest signal. We also designed a system architecture that includes a tracking sensor system and a UAV system for radio-tagged flying insects. The effectiveness of the proposed system for estimating and autonomously tracking the target position was evaluated via numerical dynamics simulation. Furthermore, feasibility tests with unmanned ground vehicle replacements for insects and UAVs were performed to validate the proposed approach. Finally, to verify the UAV system, field tests were conducted to track a fixed radio-tagged flying target on a vast flatland. This study is unique because we propose and validate a novel mobile robot-based tracking system to localize radio tags of flying insects.