Abstract: This paper mainly studies the design and practice of a night-time location monitoring program for the Asian elephant group migrating northward in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. Firstly, the monitoring requirements of the program are clarified, including night-time elephant group identification, real-time dynamic location update, migration route drawing, route and safety research and so on. Secondly, the software and hardware selection of the program is introduced, mainly relying on unmanned aerial vehicles combined with infrared cameras. Then, the scheme design of the program is discussed, including hovering height, flight design, monitoring point connection, recognition, measurement and handover operations. Finally, through practice and result analysis, this paper concludes that the night-time location monitoring program of unmanned aerial vehicles combined with infrared cameras can effectively identify the Asian elephant group in real time, update the position in time, draw the route, and predict the elephant group's route in advance, providing effective protection measures for the elephant group migration.

Key words: Asian elephant, northward migration, monitoring, unmanned aerial vehicle, thermal imaging