AnimalEnvNet: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Method for Constructing Animal Agents Using Multimodal Data Fusion

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 14; no. 14; p. 6382
• Main Authors: Chen, Zhao, Wang, Dianchang, Zhao, Feixiang, Dai, Lingnan, Zhao, Xinrong, Jiang, Xian, Zhang, Huaiqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.07.2024
• Subjects: Algorithms; Animal behavior; animal movement behaviour mode; AnimalEnvNet; Climate change; CNN; Datasets; Deep learning; deep reinforcement learning; Investigations; LSTM; Machine learning; multimodal data fusion; Neural networks; Remote sensing; Satellites
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app14146382

Simulating animal movement has long been a central focus of study in the area of wildlife behaviour studies. Conventional modelling methods have difficulties in accurately representing changes over time and space in the data, and they generally do not effectively use telemetry data. Thus, this paper introduces a new and innovative deep reinforcement learning technique known as AnimalEnvNet. This approach combines historical trajectory data and remote sensing images to create an animal agent using deep reinforcement learning techniques. It overcomes the constraints of conventional modelling approaches. We selected pandas as the subject of our research and carried out research using GPS trajectory data, Google Earth images, and Sentinel-2A remote sensing images. The experimental findings indicate that AnimalEnvNet reaches convergence during supervised learning training, attaining a minimal mean absolute error (MAE) of 28.4 m in single-step prediction when compared to actual trajectories. During reinforcement learning training, the agent has the capability to replicate animal locomotion for a maximum of 12 iterations, while maintaining an error margin of 1000 m. This offers a novel approach and viewpoint for mimicking animal behaviour.