Cat watch

LPRS has provided ITV technical services with easy-Radio wireless modules to monitor the movements of cats for a US-based program maker.

The program was commissioned to study the psychology of cats and was made on location at a farm in Scotland. The filming of wild cats required 'cat cam' cameras to be set up and left unattended for many hours.

With only one hour of filming time available on the cameras, a system was required to turn the cameras on only when cats were present.

An infrared beam detector was used at the entrance to a barn which, when triggered by a cat entering the doorway, activated the camera using modules.

Wireless was chosen as the locations of both camera and detector were difficult to access, a great distance apart and running a cable around the barn would have been difficult and had health and safety issues.

The module used in this project was an LPRS transceiver ER400TRS-02.

The system was designed to be polled every 20 ms to give good responsiveness.