A Low-Cost Open-Source BLE-Based Asian Hornet Tracking System

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Callebaut, Gilles, Van Moer, Jan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Callebaut, Gilles
Van Moer, Jan
author_facet Callebaut, Gilles
Van Moer, Jan
contents The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) poses a serious threat to ecosystems and beekeeping. Locating nests is essential, but usually involves time-consuming manual triangulation. We present a low-cost, open-source tracking system based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The system consists of a lightweight BLE tag and a software-defined radio (SDR) receiver implemented in GNU Radio. By bypassing the BLE stack, we embed a custom pseudo-noise (PN) sequence in the uncoded PHY for correlation-based detection. Using a Yagi antenna and PlutoSDR, the receiver performs digital beam sweeping to determine the tag's direction. Field tests show reliable angular resolution at 50m and a communication range up to 360m. While our modulation increases receiver complexity, it enables future improvements such as multichannel spreading and tag identification. The design is fully open-source and provides a scalable framework for hornet tracking and related applications in environmental monitoring.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03979
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Low-Cost Open-Source BLE-Based Asian Hornet Tracking System
Callebaut, Gilles
Van Moer, Jan
Signal Processing
The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) poses a serious threat to ecosystems and beekeeping. Locating nests is essential, but usually involves time-consuming manual triangulation. We present a low-cost, open-source tracking system based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The system consists of a lightweight BLE tag and a software-defined radio (SDR) receiver implemented in GNU Radio. By bypassing the BLE stack, we embed a custom pseudo-noise (PN) sequence in the uncoded PHY for correlation-based detection. Using a Yagi antenna and PlutoSDR, the receiver performs digital beam sweeping to determine the tag's direction. Field tests show reliable angular resolution at 50m and a communication range up to 360m. While our modulation increases receiver complexity, it enables future improvements such as multichannel spreading and tag identification. The design is fully open-source and provides a scalable framework for hornet tracking and related applications in environmental monitoring.
title A Low-Cost Open-Source BLE-Based Asian Hornet Tracking System
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03979