The use of the RFID technology to study the laboratory animals behavior

The behavior analysis of small laboratory animals, alone or in a group, is of fundamental importance in many areas of biomedical and pharmacology research. Mice and rats are generally used in laboratory to test new drugs and vaccines for human use. The success of the behavior analysis strongly depends on the ability of the researcher to identify and keep under control, instant by instant, each animal within a cage. In most cases the main information regarding the behavioral dynamics of the animals are deducible from the analysis of their movement, so that tracking of animals themselves is crucial to accomplish a meaningful medical and pharmacological research. In this work, main requirements of an innovative tracking system based on the use of passive UHF RFID technology suitable for the analysis of the small animals behavior have been individuated and a prototypal overall hardware and software system has been designed and implemented. First achieved results are impressive and demonstrate the appropriateness of the proposed approach.