The company was established in 2006 with the goal of advancing the performance and capabilities of GPS and ancillary low power technology in a wide range of new and emerging consumer applications. Initial product developments targeted at a range of diverse markets involved highly innovative advances in ultra low power GPS technology, to produce ever more power-efficient solutions. A range of highly advanced products were subsequently developed and successfully produced for the marine mammal and large seabird tracking markets.
We fully understand the significant challenges involved in carrying out conservation critical tracking projects. Hence it is essential that the most suitable technology and package is selected and correctly deployed in order to achieve the goals of such projects.
At Pathtrack our support journey begins by working with potential customers to identify their key requirements so that we can then identify the most suitable tag configuration options available. We have vast experience in advising between the trade offs that often need to be made between performance, size and weight.
Once an order is placed our support team works closely with our production team to ensure that every detail of the order, including tag configuration and any other customer-specific requirements are captured. The delivery date is of course a key milestone for any project and we always strive to ensure that tags arrive in-hand with each customer in advance of this date to allow time for testing prior to their deployment. We ensure that all export documents and controls are in place to allow for the smoothest and swiftest journey of the tags regardless of which corner of the globe they are destined.
Whether it is pre-deployment, during deployment, or after deployment our support team is available to provide advice regarding tag scheduling, maintenance advice or assistance in analysing deployment data.
At Pathtrack we appreciate our customers put their trust not only in our advanced GPS tracking technology, but also in the world-class support that we provide. We believe that this combination of technology and support helps our customers to continue breaking new ground with their critical tracking and conservation projects.
We have continued to evolve the nanoFix® range of products in terms of performance and functionality. As well as our expertise in GPS and low-power wireless communications we have developed a wide range of skills in packaging our products to meet the needs of this market.
Custom packaging solutions are often employed to withstand the challenges of both the environment and the animal’s behaviour, whilst keeping tag weight to the minimum possible. Consequently we have developed the world’s lightest weight fully packaged GPS loggers and also the world’s lightest weight combined GPS+UHF tags.
As advances continue to be made in miniaturisation of electronic components and systems we have been able to add additional capabilities to our tags such as depth sensors and accelerometers. Our continuous developments aim to ensure we always provide the smallest and lightest weight GPS tags enhanced with the sensors required to provide key conservation science data.
Since day one we have hand-built each and every one of our tags and this is something that we continue to do allowing us to have unrivalled flexibility in making a truly customised solution for our customers specific project needs.
The knowledge and experience gained by handling many thousands of tags means that our technicians can often be instrumental in suggesting future improvements to assist our Engineering design team with further advances in terms of size and weight reductions or improvements in functionality.
As each tag configuration has specific requirements relating to the species for which it is designed, as well as the environment in which it is to be deployed, then we must take the same approach to the testing which it undergoes. This means that we only perform testing that closely replicates those conditions in which the tags will find themselves in during their actual deployment.
All build and test data is stored electronically along with other key data allowing us to quickly and easily review and allowing us to build to the exact customer specific configuration year-on-year. This is often important for conservation studies to ensure there is complete repeatability allowing the clear and unbiased comparison of data sets from year-to-year.
Industry experts with over 25 years experience in the field of GPS receiver technology and ultra low power systems design.
Dr Gary Brodin is an Electronic Engineer with over 25 years experience in the field of GPS receiver technology and ultra low power systems design. After completing his PhD at the University of Leeds in 1997 he worked as a Senior Research Fellow before being appointed as Director of the CAA Institute of Satellite Navigation, University of Leeds. In 2006 he left that post to establish Pathtrack.
Dr Emma Brodin graduated from the University of Leeds with LLB(Hons) and a Masters degree by research in Law. She was awarded her PhD in Law in 1997. After a career break to raise her family she began working for Pathtrack in 2011, carrying out a wide range of financial, administrative and legal duties. In 2019 Emma was appointed as Finance Director of the company.
The directors are supported by a dedicated and experienced team. Many of our existing customers will be familiar with Alan and Jennie in our sales and support roles.
Alan comes from a highly customer focused role, previously working as a project manager for a worldwide engineering group, supplying capital equipment into pharmaceutical facilities around the world. He joined Pathtrack in the summer of 2020 and is enjoying the challenge of learning all about telemetry and the new technologies that bring this data to life.
Jennie joined Pathtrack in the summer of 2021 and has already demonstrated her exceptional organisational skills and passion for logistics by restructuring many of our internal processes and also providing customers with a dedicated point of contact for all customer support requests. Jennie supports our customers with matters including tag testing, set-up and configuration advice, data analysis assistance as well as advising on the best way to maintain the tags for future deployments.
Overseeing the production team and having responsibility for all things quality, is Tom our Production and Quality Manager. Tom leads the production team, ensuring all customer orders are built and tested to the exact specification agreed and delivered within the timeline. From the quality perspective, he works closely with the engineering team and our key suppliers, to ensure that each and every individual component is of the same consistent quality and performance in order that our tags deliver the same high levels of GPS location data year on year.
At the heart of PathTrack is our production team – highly skilled individuals working to extremely high-precision tolerances to hand build all our tags in-house. Our team of production and test technicians have over 30 years combined experience in building and testing our world-leading products and they take great care and personal pride in every tag that passes through their hands.
Our Engineering team works in harmony with our production, sales and support staff to strive to provide the most advanced lightweight, low-power solutions to support the vast range of customer project goals that we are challenged to meet. As well as supporting our products throughout their lifecycle to achieve continuous improvement the team focus on new ideas and technologies to integrate those into our product range as quickly as possible.