Re: Dog-napping It is a big market, but it's not big enough I suspect. My bet would be that military and security applications, logistics and supply chains (for all produce and consumer goods) will drive this technology. Then the benefits will flow through to other markets and applications (including pet tracking).
Re: Dog-napping I think that all the bits of technology exist in the civil sector at various levels of maturity. I've seen the device to device communications demonstrated at a UK university. I have many colleagues working on energy harvesting. The mobile comms infrastructure already exists. It requires someone with deep pockets to integrate the bits of technology, make a set of prototypes for testing, conduct trials, design a service and generate a business case. It might be possible to sell the service to people too. How about chipping your pets and children?
Re: Dog-napping I'm sure, but do you really think pet and children chipping is the drive to market and commercial application for this technology?
Re: Dog-napping It would be difficult to make a business case for pets. Going back to the start of this thread there are 27 million pets in the UK. It would take a significant take-up of the service to cover the cost of development and deployment. As for "chipping" children, that suggestion was tongue-in-cheek.
Re: Dog-napping So interesting though! At least we know we can look forward to the day when our dogs (and children ;D) are completely traceable 24/7.
Re: Dog-napping I am neither a scientist nor businessman and clearly before any such venture one would need to conduct research to establish the risk, market and possible solutions. I have based my comments perhaps naievely, on the fact that there are 25M domestic pet owners in the UK alone, who love their pets, fear that they are now at risk from dognapping and would be prepared to pay say £50-100 for the peace of mind that if their pets went missing they could be traced. If the same threat applied to my children then I would take similar steps to protect them. I fully accept that the technology currently does not exist and it may take another 10-20 years before it does but the key is to find a source to fund the R&D and I accept that it may not be possible. The market for these devices in the military is small and I remain convinced that future developement will be driven by the domestic market. Roger
Re: Dog-napping I don't think anything you have said is wrong - it's just when huge R&D cost are involved, investors go for sure bets, then the technology trickles down when it becomes cheaper (and patents run out).Tracking consumer products for logistics is huge (retail markets in the UK alone are worth upwards of £300bn a year), and military applications often aren't required to turn a profit (which is why we have GPS - the US military funded the satellites). Tracking pets will come later - but roll on! I'm first in the Q! Brill thread! Thanks for starting, Morwenstow.
Re: Dog-napping I'm not sure that the research costs are all that high. Most of the technology already exists at a fairly high TRL and some of it is already available. I think the technology could probably get to proof of concept/demonstrator stage with a device that is worn, rather than inserted. The guys in the lab next door have produced a wearable monitoring system for fire fighters so adapting it to a pet is not too demanding. Development will be expensive, especially if new chips have to be fabricated to miniaturize the devices. The real expense will come from tests and trials as (quite rightly) there are many ethical safeguards concerning trials on living creatures. I've only been through this process once and the amount of paperwork and committee work is staggering. My application was for an externally carried device so I guess that something internal will introduce many more processes to be followed. That's a lot of paperwork/time/money to be added to the development budget. I don't think the technical risk is high, but the financial risk would be significant. As Morwenstow rightly point out, good market research is essential.
