By Telecompaper
The first LoRaWAN elephant collar has been deployed at Liwonde National Park in Malawi. Rangers will be able to see elephant locations every fifteen minutes. The Smart Parks technology provides rangers with GPS locations four times an hour, enabling them to protect elephants better.
In cooperation with conservation organisation African Parks, an elephant was recently equipped with a LoRaWAN/GPS-sensor in Liwonde National Park, which has been managed by African Parks with the government since 2015 in Malawi.
The new system is energy-efficient as the device has a long-life span to send reliable and consistent location updates.
The Smart Parks collar will last eight-and-a-half years if they send data every fifteen minutes. At an interval of once per hour, the collar could last for 30 years. This has a tremendous impact in reducing the costs both financially and to the animal associated with collaring.
Current GPS elephant collars provide a location update about once per hour. The information is sent twice a day via satellite to the park rangers. At this interval, the device can last approximately two to five years.
