Networked Robotic Cameras for Collaborative Observation of Natural Environments

Scientific study of animals in situ requires vigilant observation of detailed animal behavior over weeks or months. When animals live in remote and/or inhospitable locations, observation can be an arduous, expensive, dangerous, and lonely experience for scientists. Emerging advances in robot cameras, long-range wireless networking, and distributed sensors make feasible a new class of portable robotic “observatories” that can allow groups of scientists, via the internet, to remotely observe, record, and index detailed animal activity. As a shorthand for such an instrument, we propose the acronym CONE: Collaborative Observatory for Natural Environments. One challenge is to develop a mathematical framework for collaborative observation. Collaborative observation includes (1) collaboration between humans of different backgrounds, skill sets, and authority/permission levels and (2) collaboration between humans and automated agents whose behavior arises from sensor inputs and/or computation. As illustrated in Figure 4, our framework uses a panoramic image and set of activity frames to provide a unified representation for output and for input from both human observers and sensors.