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 researchersexisting vivarium cage systemsFor this Phase I SBIR projectVulintusIncproposes to develop and validateHabiTraka miniature low costwireless device for continuously monitoring small animal health and activity inside any standard commercial home cageThe HabiTrak design leverages recent advances in sensor miniaturization to combine a suite of thermographic and environmental sensors in a smallrobust package designed to be placed inside the home cageDuring this Phase I projectVulintusin collaboration with DrMegan Detloff s lab at the Drexel University College of Medicinewill conduct bench and animal feasibility testing with HabiTrak prototypesThe feasibility of HabiTrak will be judged on the accuracy and utility of the measurements the device provides and how easily the system can be deployed into existing research institutionsHabiTrak s smalllow cost designtechnologyand ease of deployment will hopefully encourage widespread adoption of automatedunsupervised home cage health and behavioral assessments 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 researchersexisting vivarium cage systemsIn this Phase I proposalVulintus proposes to develop and validateHabiTraka miniaturelow cost wireless sensor suite for monitoring small animal health and activity in any standard home cageHabiTrak s smalllow cost designtechnologyand ease of deployment into existing systems will hopefully encourage widespread adoption of automatedunsupervised home cage health and behavioral assessments