summary: We announced SMART-BARN, a state-of-the-art facility for studying group behavior in animals.
The tool is housed in an 18th-century barn and gymnasium-sized imaging vault and uses high-throughput techniques such as optical and acoustic tracking to monitor animals in 3D. This allows researchers to study behaviors and interactions that were previously impossible to capture in a laboratory setting.
SMART-BARN is considered a game changer in the field, with applications ranging from biology to artificial intelligence.
Important facts:
- SMART-BARN stands for Scalable Multimodal Arena for tracking the behavior of large numbers of animals in real time.
- This technology can monitor hundreds or even thousands of animals simultaneously, depending on their size.
- The system is multidisciplinary, developed by biologists, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, and has already been applied to study a variety of species, including pigeons, starlings, moths, bats, and humans.
sauce: University of Konstanz
Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Center for Advanced Research in Collective Behavior (CASCB) and the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior have transformed a former barn into a state-of-the-art laboratory for the analysis of complex behavior. In doing so, they have been able to study the complex behavior of animal groups.
The barn also served as a prototype for the image storage, the largest herd behavior laboratory at the University of Konstanz.
A major limitation in behavioral research is the ability of scientists to study animals in the highly controlled but often unrealistically simplified small-scale environments of the laboratory, or in the largely uncontrolled environment of the wild. The ability to study animals under conditions that are not
This limits our ability to study various aspects of behavior, including collective behavior, the movements and interactions between animals that are the basis of complex social life. What do you need to deal with this? First of all, a place with a lot of space. The second is cutting-edge technology.
Both are available in the imaging hangar, an 18th-century barn at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Meggingen, near Konstanz, and now a gymnasium-sized hall at the University of Konstanz. Both laboratories are used to study group behavior in animals in detail.
To do this in a multidimensional way, researchers from the University of Konstanz’s Center for Advanced Research in Collective Behavior Cluster of Excellence and the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior developed a tool called SMART-BARN.
SMART-BARN is an acronym for. Scalable multimodal arena for tracking the behavior of large numbers of animals in real time.
“This is a new tool that allows us to study complex behavioral traits of individuals and interactions between groups of animals such as insects, birds, and mammals,” says Hemal Naik. He developed SMART-BARN together with cluster co-speakers Mate Nagy and Ian Cousin.
The team was highly interdisciplinary, with biologists, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists developing it together.
Máté Nagy further explains the tool: “We use high-throughput measurement techniques such as optical and acoustic tracking. This allows us to study the precise 3D position and pose of the animal and calculate the animal’s visual field.”
Users of the new facility can take advantage of the modularity of the system to flexibly perform different experimental paradigms.
Why scale matters
“SMART-BARN is designed to scale up typical indoor behavioral experiments in terms of experimental volume, measured behavioral traits, and group size.”
Computer scientist Hemal Naik said, adding: “This means that the animals have more space, so users can measure behavioral repertoires that were previously invisible.” The facility will accommodate hundreds of animals, depending on their size. Animals can be housed simultaneously, extending experimental possibilities to new species of animals not normally studied in indoor environments.
“In fact, we have now expanded this to be able to handle thousands of animals,” Cousin added. “We recently conducted research in our image vault and tracked 10,000 plague locusts. This would not have been possible without our SMART-BARN technology.”
How to use SMART-BARN
So far, SMART-BARN has been used in a variety of experimental use cases with subjects as diverse as pigeons, starlings, moths, bats, and humans.
Naik is delighted: “This facility is shaping important new interdisciplinary collaborations.”
“For example, SMART-BARN provides the ability to track the 3D gaze and posture of birds in groups of 10 or more while preserving their identity. This technology is designed to investigate the role of gaze in decision-making. It is used by researchers for
The same technology is being used by computer scientists to design new computer vision and AI-based algorithms that facilitate 3D tracking of animals without marking them.
“With our method, we have installed an even larger system in the image repository at the University of Konstanz to track swarms of robots and thousands of insects,” says Ian Cousin.
Mate Nagy said: “In short, its range of applications is limited only by the ability to come up with experimental ideas.”
The team envisions the facility to be a collaborative space where researchers from around the world can contribute to exploring behavioral questions. Therefore, the team invites researchers from all over the world to connect with them and design experiments.
About this behavioral neuroscience research news
author: Helena Dietz
sauce: University of Konstanz
contact: Helena Dietz – University of Konstanz
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
“SMART-BARN: A scalable multimodal arena for tracking the behavior of large numbers of animals in real timeWritten by Mate Nagy et al. scientific progress
abstract
SMART-BARN: A scalable multimodal arena for tracking the behavior of large numbers of animals in real time
SMART-BARN (Scalable Multimodal Arena for Real-Time Tracking of the Behavior of Large Numbers of Animals) is a large (14.7 m x 6.6 m x 3.8 m) environment that tracks the movement, behavior, and communication of animals within a group. and interactions fast and robustly. meters), a three-dimensional environment with multiple information channels.
Behavior is measured simultaneously from a wide range of taxa (insects, birds, mammals, etc.) and body size (from moths to humans).
The system includes submillimeter-accurate and high-speed (300 Hertz) motion capture, acoustic recording and localization, automatic behavioral recognition (computer vision), and remote computer-controlled interactive units (such as automatic feeders and animal control). Integrate multiple simultaneous measurement techniques including: mobile device).
Data streams are available in real-time, enabling highly controlled, behavior-dependent, closed-loop experiments while generating comprehensive datasets for offline analysis.
The diverse capabilities of SMART-BARN are demonstrated through three challenging avian case studies, highlighting its broad applicability for detailed analysis of animal collective behavior across species.