Supervisor

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Abstract

A light-level geolocator is a small device that uses measurements of the timing and duration of sunset and sunrise to estimate its location on the Earth. This is commonly used for tracking the movements of long-distance migratory animals such as birds. Modern sensors now provide the possibility of measuring light-colour as well as intensity. Widely used in laptops and smartphones to automatically adjust the screen colour to ambient conditions, these sensors provide intensity measurements in 11 spectral bands. In this project, you will explore whether this additional colour information can improve the accuracy of traditional light-level geolocators. You will model how ambient light colour changes over the course of the day and then use this model to estimate the location of a prototype sensor that collects hourly ambient light-colour measurements. The work will test the feasibility of this approach for use within future wildlife tracking tags.