7 Sample Work-Flow

1. Rear and/or collect experimental insects

2. Set up experiment room:

  • Arrange lighting
  • Schedule light timers
  • Arrange iLAM flight cages

3. Furnish iLAMs:

  • Fill water and/or food containers
  • Add to base or ceiling of flight cages

4. Program iLAMs

  • Modify crontab file
  • Delete old images to free storage on Pi’s SD card
  • Verify that Pi and PC (that photos are uploaded to) contain sufficient storage for the experiment’s duration
  • Verify that camera is connected, centered, and focused
  • If images are automatically uploaded, verify that Pis are connected to Wifi and synced to upload directory

5. Load insects:

  • Add insects (5-10/cage)
  • Write and save a README.txt file with experiment information into directory that images are uploaded into

6. Start experiment

7. Check-in:

  • Verify images uploaded
  • Verify that light transitions occurred at expected times
  • Verify that SD card contains appropriate storage space for the experiment’s duration

8. End experiment

9. Store data:

  • Sometimes, Wifi interruptions can prevent successful image upload. Verify that no images are missing from any Pis
  • Directly download any outstanding images from Pis
  • Save images in directory for analysis

10. Identify movements by post-process image segmentation

11. Analyze and plot movement data from experiment

Tips:

  • On average, a .jpg image captured by an iLAM requires 2.3-3.0 MB storage.
  • If images are captured every 2 min x 7 days, then est. 11.6-15.1 GB storage required/iLAM