Where's Fido?

August 1, 2005 By: Marty Whitford

GPS, GSM Trail Companion Canines

CIMBIX Corp. of Las Vegas, Nevada, in late June committed to pay $1 million plus a 5-percent quarterly royalty fee for the rights to sell PetsCell worldwide, and is changing its name to PetsMobility Inc. Cameron Robb, On4 president, said the firm will pursue other markets such as search-and-rescue, military, and guide dogs. But there are more pet trackers on the way.

Locatis SA of Glovelier, Switzerland, for instance, plans to introduce in September its PB100 water-resistant GPS/GSM–enabled pet tracking device delivering dogs' positions via cell phone, Internet, or the company's call center. A.I. Inc. of Montgomery County, Maryland, this fall will launch its collar-attached Stealth Pet Tracker, giving users Internet access to a 30-day archive of position updates on their four-legged friends.

"We're trying to reduce our device's size so we can track cats, but there's always that tightrope walk between GPS/GSM signal acquisition and system size," A.I. CEO William Buckley said.

Finally, Kevin Owen, president of Cleburne, Texas-based Electronic ID, a distributor of Digital Angel Corp. (South St. Paul, Minnesota) RFID implants for livestock and pets, said the industry isn't far from solving issues hounding GPS/RFID implant hopes.

"Unlike RFID, GPS requires active transponders and an energy source," said Owen, a doctor of veterinary medicine. "Having an external power source for GPS/RFID implants would be more trouble than it would be worth, but current battery technologies could internally power GPS/RFID implants for five to seven years. There are other integration and application issues that need to be worked out, but we're closer than many think," he concluded.

Manufacturers

VECTRONIC's GPS PRO Pet Tracker embeds the ANTARIS positioning engine co-developed by Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Atmel Corp. and Thalwil Switzerland-based u-blox AG. GPS Tracks' GlobalPetFinder integrates a Leadtek Research Inc. (Tapei Hsien, Taiwan) 9805-T-HS-4M GPS receiver with SiRFXTrac software from San Jose, California-based SiRF Technology Holdings Inc., a Sarantel Ltd. (Wellingborough, United Kingdom) GeoHelix SMP Passive GPS Antenna, a Motorola (Tempe, Arizona) g20 GSM communications module, and MapQuest maps supplied by uLocate. Pointer Positioning Solutions Oy Ltd.'s Pointer Dog-GPS combines the Benefon ESC! NT handheld personal navigator and TrackKeeper NT with an iTrax02 GPS receiver from Vantaa, Finland-based Fastrax Ltd., and maps from Genimap Oy of Espoo, Finland. On4 Communications produces the PetsCell, equipped with a QUALCOMM Inc.(San Diego, California) gpsOne receiver. Locatis SA's PB100 integrates a proprietary GPS and Sarantel's GeoHelix SMP antenna.