HabiTrak: low-cost, wireless home cage health and activity monitoring.

Project Abstract Currently available commercial systems for automated home cage health and behavioral monitoring of small animal research models are typically expensive and do not work universally with researchers’ existing vivarium cage systems. Under this Phase II SBIR project, Vulintus, Inc. will continue to develop and validate “HabiTrak”, a miniature low-cost, wireless device for continuously monitoring small animal health and activity inside any standard commercial home cage. The HabiTrak design leverages recent advances in sensor miniaturization to combine a suite of thermographic and environmental sensors in a small, robust package designed to be placed wirelessly inside the home cage. Vulintus’ Phase II activities include finalization of the hardware design and development of an interactive online ecosystem for real-time access to HabiTrak data. Concurrently, HabiTrak will undergo beta testing in three diverse biomedical research studies at Drexel University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Texas at Dallas. Beta testing will help to establish the accuracy and utility of HabiTrak measurements, and guide the development of protocols for how HabiTrak can be most easily deployed into existing research institutions. At the conclusion of this Phase II, a fully developed HabiTrak system will provide researchers and vivariums with an unprecedented window into their animals’ health and activity, particularly for models requiring intensive supervision, and will help to identify and control for nuisance factors that may obscure significant discoveries.Project Narrative Currently available commercial systems for automated home cage health and behavioral monitoring of small animal research models are typically expensive and do not work universally with researchers’ existing vivarium cage systems. In this Phase II project, Vulintus continues development of “HabiTrak,” a miniature, low-cost wireless sensor suite for monitoring small animal health and activity in any standard home cage. HabiTrak’s small, low-cost design, technology, and ease of deployment into existing systems will hopefully encourage widespread adoption of automated, unsupervised home cage health and behavioral assessments.