Research overview: dead-reckoning fine-scale path reconstruction

Dead-reckoning reconstructs an animal's detailed path between sparse GPS fixes by integrating heading from a magnetometer with speed inferred from acceleration, producing a continuous trajectory at sub-second resolution. This overview explains how the technique fills the gaps that even fast GPS schedules leave, revealing the tortuous stalking approaches, sudden turns, and micro-movements of a hunting cat. Because integration accumulates error, dead-reckoned paths are periodically corrected, or anchored, to true GPS positions. The method demands careful sensor calibration and is computationally intensive, but it exposes behavioral detail invisible to location data alone. For felid energetics and predation studies, dead-reckoning bridges the resolution gap between where a cat is logged and what it is actually doing on the ground.