Software/Firmware
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Anabat is a system designed to help users identify and survey bats by detecting and analysing their echolocation calls. It carries a strong emphasis on passive detection, in which the detector is used as a logging device to monitor bat activity in the absence of human intervention. But it is also very well suited to active monitoring, where the user watches bats in much the same ways as a birder watches birds. In that case, a bat detector is substituted for binoculars as the main enabling technology.
For passive monitoring, there are three main components to the system, a Bat Detector, a ZCAIM and software. In the newer SD1 model, the detector and ZCAIM are combined into one housing. The detector and ZCAIM can be placed in the field and protected from the weather, so they can monitor bats all night long, every night for months or even years at a time, while saving their data to a Compact Flash memory card (like those used in cameras). The card is typically swapped out in the field with an empty card, and then downloaded to extract the stored data, which can be viewed and managed in the AnalookW software.
For active monitoring, the ideal setup is an SD1 with an attached PDA, which allows in-the-hand monitoring of bat calls in real time. This arrangement gives the user maximum freedom of movement to follow bats on foot. Surveys can easily be conducted on foot or from a moving vehicle. The ability to see bat calls in real time has many benefits, making it much easier to associate different bat call types with the bats and their behaviour. See here for more details.
The Bat Detector is used to produce audible output from the ultrasonic (and therefore generally inaudible) sounds which bats generate in order to echolocate. While there are many types of bat detectors available commercially, those used in the Anabat system are the ANABAT II and SD1 detectors. The SD1 is a more recent model which combines a detector and ZCAIM (see below). These are frequency dividing (FD) detectors which provide a broadband frequency down-conversion, which generates audio signals with frequencies directly related to those the bat is producing. Many authors have treated Frequency Division detectors as poor cousins of the more complex detector types, because they provide less complete detail of the recorded bat calls. However, there are many tradeoffs in bat detector design, and the Anabat detectors provide a number of very important facilities which are not possible with other detectors. Anabat detectors make it very fast and easy to see the output which is of most value for species identification (the frequency-time characteristics of bat calls), and they provide this in a manner which is extremely efficient in terms of data storage requirements and power consumption. Furthermore, the nature of the data generated by Anabat detectors is ideally suited to analysis using Zero-Crossings Analysis (ZCA), which provides very clear depictions of the important call details without the blurriness inherent in displays made using FFT (which is necessary for other forms of call analysis, and is also much slower and requires relatively huge amounts of data). FD and ZCA are used in combination to allow Anabat detectors to provide realtime displays of bat calls, and to facilitate long term passive monitoring. Other techniques, such as time-expansion, may give more complete depictions of call detail, but these extra details have little if any value for species identification and they impose other costs (such as not being able to record all the time, not being able to provide realtime displays and demanding vastly greater storage space) which limit their use in other ways.
The ZCAIM (Zero-Crossings Analysis Interface Module) is a piece of hardware which interfaces the audio-frequency signal from the Bat Detector to a computer, such as a PC, laptop or PDA. At this stage, only computers running the Windows operating system are supported. The ZCAIM is necessary to efficiently provide the fine temporal resolution required for ZCA. It is NOT true that normal computer sound cards can be used effectively for this purpose. The ZCAIM is included inside the SD1 detector, which provides the functionality of both the detector and ZCAIM in the one box. The older CF Storage ZCAIM is a separate piece of hardware intended for use with an Anabat II bat detector.
The software consists of two main programs:
CFCread which allows management of the
ZCAIM for passive recording and downloading of data from CF cards.
AnalookW which allows viewing and
manipulation (such as call parameter extraction) from saved Anabat data and has
many facilities for data management.
two utility programs:
PicLoad which allows upgrading of
the firmware in CF Storage ZCAIMs and SD1 detectors
AnaSun which provides computations of sun
and moon rises and sets and twilight times.
and PIC firmware for the SD1 and CF Storage ZCAIM.
The Anabat hardware is avaliable from:
Titley Electronics
PO Box 19
Ballina
NSW 2478
Australia
Phone: +61 (02) 66 811017
Fax: +61 (02) 66 866617
Email: info@titley.com.au
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AnaLookW version 3.3q dated 3 Oct 2006
Download ANALOOKW.ZIP (409 KB)
AnaPocket version 2.5b dated 24 July 2007
Download ANAPOCKET.ZIP (163k)
Software required to read a CF card used in a storage ZCAIM, and also to set the time in the ZCAIM.
The version of CFCread which you use must be appropriate to the version of PIC firmware in use. The current version is Version 4.2a dated 31 Oct 2006. It should be paired with the latest PIC firmware for all the functionality to operate correctly. Always update CFCread and the PIC firmware together, if both are new. The most common problem with using incompatible firmware and software is that a new firmware version might store new codes onto the CF card which cannot be read by an earlier version of CFCread.
Version 4.2a, dated 31 Oct 2006
(to check version number, click on system menu at left of CFCread dalog title and open the ABOUT box)
Download CFCREAD.ZIP (196k)
Software required to upload storage ZCAIM internal firmware via serial port.
PICLOAD version 3.7b dated 18 July 2007
(to check version number, click on system menu at left of PICload dialog title and open the ABOUT box)
Download PICLOAD.ZIP (164k)
Storage ZCAIM and SD1 internal firmware, which can be upgraded via the serial port using PICLOAD. You MUST use the latest version of PICLOAD when updating the firmware.
Always make sure you upgrade to the latest CFCread version when you update the PIC firmware.
(to check version loaded into the storage ZCAIM, connect ZCAIM to laptop via serial cable and run CFCread, open port and read Version.)
Download SZ2.ZIP (13k - version 237g3) for earlier model Storage ZCAIMs using the PIC16F877 chip and with version numbers V2xxg3
Download SZ3.ZIP (14k - version 3019g) for later model Storage ZCAIMs using the PIC18F452 chip and with version numbers V3xxxg
Download SD1.ZIP (14k - version 4019g) for SD1 Storage Detectors with version numbers V4xxxg
ANASUN Version 1.0a
A utility which generates tables of Moonrise, Moonset, Sunrise, Sunset and Twilight times for either a whole year or a single month. Enter your position in degrees and decimals for latitude and longitude, and your time zone in hours relative to GMT (west of Greenwich is negative). Output is a text file, tab delimited for easy access by spreadsheet programs. Requires Windows 9x, NT or 2000.
Download ASUN10a.ZIP (114k)
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Email: corben@hoarybat.com