| Summary: | <p>Location tracking with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as GPS, is used in many applications, including the tracking of wild animals for research. Snapshot GNSS is a technique that only requires milliseconds of satellite signals to infer the position of a receiver. This is ideal for low-power applications such as animal tracking. However, there are few existing snapshot systems, none of which is open source.</p>
<p>To address this, we developed SNAPPERGPS, a fully open-source, low-cost, and low-power location tracking system designed for wildlife tracking. SnapperGPS comprises three parts, all of which are open-source: (i) a small, low-cost, and low-power receiver; (ii) a web application to configure the receiver via USB; and (iii) a cloud-based platform for processing recorded data. This paper presents the hardware side of this project.</p>
<p>The total component cost of the receiver is under $30, making it feasible for field work with restricted budgets and low recovery rates. The receiver records very short and low-resolution samples resulting in particularly low power consumption, outperforming existing systems. It can run for more than a year on a 40 mAh battery.</p>
<p>We evaluated SNAPPERGPS in controlled static and dynamic tests in a semi-urban environment where it achieved median errors of 12 m. Additionally, SNAPPERGPS has already been deployed for two wildlife tracking studies on sea turtles and sea birds.</p>
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