Due largely to our economic situation the rates of dog-napping in UK have increased by a fifth in the past year. Many sad tales have been widely publicised in the media and trained Labradors/Spanels particularly, are top of the list for those wanting to make a fast buck. The real problem is to be able to trace the dog once the dastardly deed has been done. Currently the only way to identify the dog is to use either the metal tag or the chip system but this requires the use of a scanner normally only held by Vets/Police. Having recently purchased a Tablet (Nexus 10) which if stolen can be can traced to within 50 metres using a mobile phone, I would not have thought it beyond the wit of man to design a similar system to trace a stolen dog? There is a fortune to be made ("Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door!") for some clever electronics engineer to design such a system which would prevent considerable heartache for dog owners. Roger
Re: Dog-napping I think the problem is probably the power supply needed for the transmitter - assuming you mean to embed the device under the dog's skin. Even though tablets are small these days, the power supply is large compared to something that can be inserted into a living animal. A power supply to transmit any distance, and last a very long time, is still quite big. No doubt, the engineers will get there in time but we're a long way off that now. GPS trackers are available for collars, but they can be removed, and are still quite big. http://www.retrievatracking.com/domestic_pets_loss_theft.aspx
Re: Dog-napping [quote author=JulieT link=topic=3784.msg42996#msg42996 date=1388055772] I think the problem is probably the power supply needed for the transmitter - assuming you mean to embed the device under the dog's skin. Even though tablets are small these days, the power supply is large compared to something that can be inserted into a living animal. A power supply to transmit any distance, and last a very long time, is still quite big. No doubt, the engineers will get there in time but we're a long way off that now. GPS trackers are available for collars, but they can be removed, and are still quite big. http://www.retrievatracking.com/domestic_pets_loss_theft.aspx [/quote] Good point but in a recent paper published by Bristol University which shows there are 10.5 million dogs in UK with the figure rising to 27 million inclusive of cats; a huge commercial market. Human heart pacemakers using lithium batteries can now be recharged wirelessly from outside the body. I would have thought that the technology is around to design a small commercially viable implant which would give it sufficient power to connect with a GPS satellite, even if it meant a recharge once a week? Roger
Re: Dog-napping It's a long time since I studied power packs - but I still suspect the size (and cost - pacemakers are not cheap) would be the problem. In any tracking device you need a radio transmitter to transmit the location information (and receiver and decoder for the GPS signal if a GPS application). I'm sure it's possible, but at a cost and size acceptable to pet owners, I don't know. It would be good, for sure.
Re: Dog-napping What about secret scanners at the entrance to vets waiting rooms and a list of stolen dogs that gets matched.....most dogs probably get taken to the vet at some point.
Re: Dog-napping The scanners would have to be very powerful to work as the dog went through a doorway - but it's possible if probably a bit expensive (the hand held scanners are held close to energise the inert chip in the dog, which has no internal power supply). Might aswell get the vet to check each new dog with a hand held scanner. But then, wouldn't stolen dogs just not get taken to the vet? Or, horror, have the chip removed without the help of a vet. Hmmm.... all very interesting though. Must have a think about what would work...
Re: Dog-napping I know you can get RFID tags for merchandise that don't have a power source, they're used for stock management as the packages get moved round and out of the warehouse through scanners. I'm not sure why the chip scanners need to be held so close to the chip to activate it...... I'd have thought it depends on where the stolen dogs go to whether they'd be taken to a vet ever. I've seen far too many lost or stolen dogs on Facebook this winter - heartbreaking :'( :'( :'(
Re: Dog-napping [quote author=bbrown link=topic=3784.msg44362#msg44362 date=1388748475] I know you can get RFID tags for merchandise that don't have a power source, they're used for stock management as the packages get moved round and out of the warehouse through scanners. I'm not sure why the chip scanners need to be held so close to the chip to activate it...... I'd have thought it depends on where the stolen dogs go to whether they'd be taken to a vet ever. I've seen far too many lost or stolen dogs on Facebook this winter - heartbreaking :'( :'( :'( [/quote] I haven't checked the details recently, and my PhD in RF devices was long ago now and things no doubt have moved on, but I thought the chips in pets are low frequency. The read distance depends on the size of the tag, the frequency used, the material used and so on. Low frequency passive, small tags, often have read distances of less than a foot. You could change them, of course. To be bigger, higher frequency, and so on. It is so worrying, it would be good if there were a reliable way to track a stolen dog.
Re: Dog-napping I wonder whether it might be possible to modify the millions of CCTV cameras around the country to pick up a signal emitted from a dog? It would reduce the power necessary to transmit the signal to a satellite and I for one would be happy to pay a licence fee to join such a scheme. Cloud cuckoo land? Roger
Re: Dog-napping [quote author=Morwenstow link=topic=3784.msg44428#msg44428 date=1388770101] I wonder whether it might be possible to modify the millions of CCTV cameras around the country to pick up a signal emitted from a dog? It would reduce the power necessary to transmit the signal to a satellite and I for one would be happy to pay a licence fee to join such a scheme. Cloud cuckoo land? Roger [/quote] There is no signal transmitted to the GPS satellite - GPS receivers just receive multiple signals and work out the location based on the distance to different satellites. Then, for some tracking devices, the location is transmitted to an earth based receiver. CCTV can't receive radio signals. But, your idea of a network is a good one - you remind me of an internet of things (that's connecting stuff to the internet, obviously) article I read a couple of years ago. It was very much experimental, but cows had sensors fitted to them - they generated the most incredible amount of data. I'll dig it out...there might be something in that.
Re: Dog-napping This is the UK version - but the collars are the normal big GPS rx, radio tx - so that doesn't solve the problem we're struggling with here. http://www.telecomstechnews.com/news/2013/sep/17/uks-tracking-programme-exclusively-cows/ I'm sure I saw something in Japan with much smaller devices...out of time now, but I'll look back at my notes later.
Re: Dog-napping Dog napping is a massive global problem particularly in the UK/US and the solution has to be a tracking device that can be implanted in the animal and not removed by the would be thief. We can now track prisoners, vehicles on a 24 hour basis and although there are problems with power and miniaturisation I feel confident that this can be achieved. I do not have the necessary expertise (O level physics!) and have no wish to belabour this topic but I have written to 2 major manufacture of GPS animal tracking devices and will let you know their response. Roger
Re: Dog-napping [quote author=Morwenstow link=topic=3784.msg44459#msg44459 date=1388778090] although there are problems with power and miniaturisation I feel confident that this can be achieved. [/quote] There are always problems with power and size, always - remember how long it took for mobile phones to get to a sensible size? And think of the global size of that market! It always gets better, everyday it gets better. This topic is interesting, thank you for starting it. I hope the thread isn't over yet, we were just getting somewhere...
Re: Dog-napping The answer from the horse's mouth: Dear Roger, Thank you for your interest in our service. Projecting the pace of technological growth is fraught with difficulty and far more often meets failure than success. From what we do know, it will be quite some time before seeing a device that would offer function similar to our current tracker, while being safely implantable within an animal. Even further from being able to make such a device affordable for the average pet owner. By way of explanation, they don't even have such a device for use in multi-million dollar value racing horses. Nevermind something small enough to fit in a cat and be affordable for a cat owner. Best guess? Likely a decade or more. But as above, I'm likely wrong. I guess the question is whether I'm too pessimistic or optimistic. I hope this answers your questions. If it doesn't, let us know by email, live chat, our new forums accessed through the Support page on our website, or calling 1-855-PET-TAGG. We're here seven days a week from 10 AM to 7 PM, eastern time to help you. Thank you for choosing Tagg—The Pet Tracker™ Sincerely, Shane The Tagg Team
Re: Dog-napping Ok, have now found the details of the Cows in Japan. They used semi passive RFID chips - but cows are a lot bigger than dogs, and since they were beef cows, don't live as long. So that would be all pets needing new, bigger chips with batteries. That's not problem free, there are reports of these chips causing cancers in lab rats. And we still have the problem of the power source, but that will be solved in time, as the batteries get better. Each cow had an IP address (yes, an IPv6 address). And then readers were set up that could activate the semi-passive tags (but still over only about 100m). It's not sensible to think that we could cover the world in RFID readers from scratch, but it's much more likely that we could incorporate readers into existing technology. Mobile phone base stations, could be used as readers perhaps, transmitting to activate the tags within each mobile cell - so you could identify when the dog moved into a mobile cell, and perhaps with triangulation estimate the position within the cell. That's still a long range for the RFID tag though. But not impossible in time. So, if we project forwards - active or semi-passive RFID chips become small and are proved safe, with a large read distances, and batteries that last 10 years. We give each dog an IP address. Then we modify existing communications technology, that already has decent coverage, to become readers for the IP addresses. I'd say 20 years...
Re: Dog-napping I work in communications research and have been following this thread with interest. I thought I'd share a few thoughts about some of the stuff I'm aware of. The energy density of batteries is continuing to increase but the safety of batteries is still an issue. The LiPo in your mobile phone will explode if overheated or charged/discharged incorrectly. Also, recharging them in situ has practical issues (try getting a Lab to stay still for several hours!). We've been looking at energy harvesting based on movement, temperature difference, stray RF energy etc. The energy is captured and converted to electrical energy and stored, often in very small "super capacitors" which are much safer than batteries. The technology is being used on aircraft but the safety case for medical use is still a way off. There are many current technologies that could help. I'm aware of lots of research into using mobile devices to receive and forward messages. An example is using mobile phones to spread messages from the security services during large scale incidents. Each phone rebroadcasts an emergency message to adjacent phones, causing the message to ripple through a crowd very quickly. The message could be directions to get away from the incident. This is also being investigated for advertising (ugh!). The nice thing about this technology is that its very short range (phone to phone) so it requires little power. Imagine if a stolen dog went into a town and its embedded "phone", powered by harvested energy, detected other phones and turned itself on. It then sent a message to every adjacent phone that the dog was stolen and forwarded a picture. This message then rippled outwards through the crowd. A thief would be unable to take a dog into any public place without risk of detection. Does anyone have the money to back this idea?
Re: Dog-napping Does anyone have the money to back this idea? That's the key; there is a massive global market out there but the R&D costs will be enormous. I think we should target some giant in the computer industry; I will ask my American friends whether Bill Gates is a dog owner. Roger
Re: Dog-napping ;D Very impressed at the cleverness of folks on the forum! So much knowledge - and so many contacts
