Phantom Design and Verification Enabling Effective Antennas for Bird Tracking Technology

Advances in miniaturized radio tracking technology are helping to revolutionize the field of wildlife biology, especially with respect to studies of small birds. However, development of antennas for animal tracking applications often fails to formally account for the effects of the animal’s body on signal transmission. This letter describes an electromagnetic phantom that accurately represents a small bird. The phantom is validated with empirical measurements and can be easily scaled to represent larger or smaller bird species.