Analyzing relative motion within groups of trackable moving point objects

Abstract

The overall goal of the ongoing project is to develop methods for spatio-temporal analysis of relative motion within groups of moving point objects, such as GPS-tracked animals. Whereas recent efforts of dealing with dynamic phenomena within the GIScience community mainly concentrated on modeling and representation, this research project concentrates on the analytic task. The analysis is performed on a process level and does not use the traditional cartographic approach of comparing snapshots. The analysis concept called REMO (Relative Motion) is based on the comparison of motion parameters of objects over time. Therefore the observation data is transformed into a 2.5-dimensional analysis matrix, featuring a time axis, an object axis and motion parameters. This matrix reveals basic searchable relative movement patterns. The current approach handles points in a pure featureless space. Case study data of GPS-observed animals and political entities in an ideological space are used for illustration purposes.