As according to the Wikipedia, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is a global navigation satellite system that provides geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. One fascinating area of research uses GPS to track movements of animals. This case study visualizes, examines and manipulates GPS data that is used to track flight patterns of birds.
The data for this project comes from the LifeWatch research infrastructure, and consists of migration data for three gulls named Eric, Sanne and Nico. This small dataset is available in the bird_tracking.csv file.
Some other files contained in this project are:
patterns.pdf, a plot that displays the periods which each of the birds fly substantially more. These are the periods that correspond to their migration patterns.trajectories.pdf, a figure that showcases the trajectory path of each bird in the cartesian plane.map.pdf, an actual map made with the Cartopy library to represent the trajectory of all the three birds using GPS data. It looks like birds prefer to fly near the coast during the migration period.- And an extra assortment of Eric's files for a singular overview.
More info about the Cartopy library can be found here.
Special acknowledgment: Jukka-Pekka "JP" Onnela and the whole HarvardX's team, for developing this case study for the (PH526x) Using Python for Research course.