Group

Sensors / Feed

Want to talk about sensors that don't quite fit into any of our tech-specific groups? This is the place to post! From temperature and humidity to airflow and pressure sensors, there are many environmental sensing tools that can add valuable data to core conservation monitoring technologies. With the increasing availability of low-cost, open-source options, we've seen growing interest in integrating these kinds of low bandwidth sensors into existing tools. What kinds of sensors are you working with?

discussion

A Sensor-Based Approach to Studying Animal Behavior in Light Pollution Research

Greetings, I'm Sebastian!I am share with you a project that I will need help on some aspects: "Development of a system for recording animal activity and behavior based on sensors...

4 0

Thanks for helping me!

For now, I'll be testing with mains power (220V). The final prototype needs to be functional using solar panel. 

The main system will be a Raspberry Pi, as the Brain of this project, receiving and storage all the measurements from the other devices, controlling the system. The measurement devices will be a microcontroller (still searching for which one to use) with differents sensor, such Lux sensor like TSL2561 or 2591, AudioMoth to record animals sounds, temperature and some other measurements.

For synchronization, must be effective, because the measurements must be or have the same time, so the storage data from differents devices can be grouped by it's timestamp and have full control for animals and fauna. So, probably it will be a lot of data per day.

 

The distance between each devices I haven't study yet, consider 20 meters within each device.

Unless you are planning on making a mesh network between nodes then the total distance spanning the location of all the nodes is important to know, not just the intra node distance.

If you have a Raspberry Pi as a main master node then you could install my sbts-aru project as a base project and you would get a sub-microsecond master time base by default as well as the GPS synchronizes the main system time with typically less than 0.1 microsecond, and SD card corruption resilience due to the in-memory overlayFS architecture.

If the total distance was 20m across all nodes, then the approach above could also combined the audio gathering capability as the sbts-aru project does audio logging as it would be within 20m of an audiomoth anyway, then you also have time-synchonized audio. If the distance is spanning 100m for example and it's just the intranode distance that is 20m then everything is somewhat different with respect to synchronization.

See full post
discussion

Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.

My name is Krasi Georgiev and I run an initiative focused on providing funding and tech solutions for stories with a real-world impact. The main reason is that I am passionate...

2 1

Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!



That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs! 



In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.



And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.



Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:



 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/850179762



 

Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!

Cheers!

Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.

Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details

There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.

See full post
discussion

Power managment/Recharging System and Communication System

As we know Power managment/Recharging System and Communication System are chalanges for forest, so any one please suggest the Device and Power source to monitor sound in forest...

15 0

Power usage for microcontrollers with solar is  much more manageable. For Raspberry Pi's and higher it gets expensive and big.

I'm quite impressed by the specs from the Goal Zero Yeti devices. This can have high capacity and be charged with Solar. Not small though. And the price is not in proportion to the Pi's.

So this 200x model for example, would be close to 16 days running the audio recorder. Let's say 10. without solar. Add solar? Depends on the size of the panels I guess. Power usage for mobile networking? Depends on how much you transmit.

Probably some well documented experiments would be really nice for people here. Sounds like something nice for the next set of grants :)

See full post
discussion

How are Outdoor Fire Detection Systems Adapted for Small Forest Areas, Considering the Predominance of Indoor Fire Detectors?

How are fire detection mechanisms tailored for outdoor environments, particularly in small forest areas, given that most fire and smoke detectors are designed for indoor use?

1 0

Fire detection is a sort of broad idea.  Usually people detect the products of fire, and most often this is smoke.

Many home fire detectors in the US use a radioactive source and measure the absorption of the radiation by the air.  More smoke means more absorption.

For outdoor fire detection, PM2.5 can be a very good smoke proxy, and outdoor PM2.5 sensing is pretty accessible.

This one is very popular in my area. 

 

See full post
discussion

Open-Source design guide for a low-cost, long-running aquatic stereo camera

Katie Dunkley's project has been getting a heap of attention in the conservation tech community - she very kindly joined Variety Hour to give us a walkthrough of her Open-Source...

2 0

This is awesome - thanks for sharing Stephanie!! We actually were looking around for a low-cost video camera to augment an MPA monitoring project locally and this looks like a really great option!

 

Cheers, Liz

Thank you for sharing! Super interesting, as we don't see many underwater stereo cameras! We also use Blue Robotics components in our projects and have found them reliable and easy to work with. 

See full post
discussion

Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0

Hi WildLabs,ZSL is looking for Beta testers for Instant Detect 2.0. If you are a conservationist, scientist or wildlife ranger with experience working with innovative...

1 2

Will you accept personal/hobbyist focused on conservation on their small plots of land (10-100 acres)?

I would, and know others, who would happily pay more than the official conservationists rate for the service, which could help to further subsidize the project. (Referring to your statement here: https://wildlabs.net/discussion/instant-detect-20-and-related-cost)

See full post
discussion

Early Warning Systems (HWC) - successes/failures, recommendations? 

Hi everyone, I'm getting a lot of questions come my way about what early warning systems are available and effective -in any sort of environment. I'm keen to crowdsource some...

12 0

Maybe some practioners can send a few random videos with wolves (or in my case, dingoes in them) and you could run them through your system? Or what's the easiest way for you? I don't want create even more work for you @kimhendrikse !!

 

 

See full post
discussion

Thermal cameras for monitoring visitors in highly vulnerable conservation areas

Hi everybody, Im Alex González, a consultant and researcher in sustainable tourism and conservation. I'm currently consulting a conservation organisation for the development...

7 0

Hi,



This is a really late answer but I was new to wildlabs then. I have a security appliance that uses state of the AI models and user defined polygon areas of interest that generates video alerts of intrusions in typically under a second.

Although its setup to install automatically on an NVidia AI on the edge boxes of your intentions were to monitor a great deal of cameras you could also install it on a desktop with a high end GPU for very high performance. At home I use a desktop with an rtx 2080ti and monitor around 15 cameras and a thermal imaging camera (old one).

I have also tested a high end model (yolov7) on a high end thermal imaging camera image and it works fine as well.

Thermal yolov7

Thermal imaging cameras are hellishly expensive though and I’ve found that new extremely light sensitive cameras like the HIKvision colorvu series almost obsoletes them in terms of people detection at night at a fraction of the cost.

If you are interested I’d be happy to show you a demo in a video meeting sometime if you like. I’m pretty sure it would meeting all your intrusion detection and alerting needs.

My project page is

See full post
discussion

Autonomizing Small Mammal Traps

If there was a product on the market that was capable of trapping, ‘tagging,’ and releasing an individual without human intervention, would you or your peers invest? Live mammal...

7 0

One thing to keep in mind is that researchers often want or at least would like to get certain metadata on the tagged animals like sex, size, weight, apperent fitness etc. Without these the questions you can ask can get rather limited. Also, it will also often be highly desired to take samples like blood, hair, other tissue e.g.

In addition, there can be cases where it may be better not to tag the animal if it is not the right age group, is too small to carry the tag, seems like it is not in a good shape etc.

I think it will take quite an effort to get automated systems (capture robots) to make these decisions to a degree you can trust.

Cheers,

Lars

I always thought a tracker that attached like a slap bracelet would be sweet.

See full post
discussion

Remote weather stations

Hi sensors group! I'm hoping to incorporate fine scale weather data (wind, precipitation, temperature, etc) into my research, which will be situated in a fairly remote area of...

18 0

While pretty expensive, everyone I know has had good experiences with the HOBO weather stations and can be customizable if needed. Would still be my rec if you need something ASAP 

Hi Carly, thanks for this. I forgot to mention HOBO in my original post, but I had them down as the main available option. Think it might have to be them, I'll have to check for $ down the back of the sofa...

I came across this which looks like it might work for you.

Others have mentioned Davis.  I used the Davis vantage pro2 in a previous life, and the cabled version was about USD200 IIRC. However, it must operate with a display console, which can take an optional data logger, but the console is intended to be kept indoors.  This means providing a weatherproof enclosure for it in the forest, in addition to a mast for the anemometer etc.

See full post
discussion

Wishlist for kit in a field-based Research Station or tech testing space?

Hi wildlabbers!A colleague is looking to crowdsource some advice: what would be on your wishlist for kitting out a field based space for research and tech development?...

3 0

Regine Weckauf over on linkedin

'Little to do with research and tech development, but given how hard it is to attract and retain experienced staff to field based positions, I know it makes a difference how nice the space is. Just because it's the "field", shouldn't mean staff living in basic conditions, regardless of how many times we've been told to see it as a badge of honor. If you have the money, put in nice bathrooms, kitchen, living spaces, and private accommodation. Maybe even a nursery? It creates more local employment opportunities and people genuinely want to visit.'

 

Love the idea for in-house gear/supplies! It can be SOO difficult to travel with batteries, electronics parts with airline regs, country policies, etc. and shipping recorders/trail cams/etc. gets VERY (prohibitively) pricey in some countries with customs and taxes. Would be great to have an in-country place to source that kind of equipment. 

Housing educational resources related to that tech (in the form of people, print materials, computer tutorials) in-house would be similarly awesome. Particularly/especially in local languages.   

Having in-country wet labs as well helps the eDNA/genetics folks, since sample import/export permitting can be (always seems to be?!) a nightmare, so if you can even just do PCR and/or extractions in-country that helps a ton. 

In terms of overall field-station-wishlist - honestly, just the promise of continued funding and staff. Every field station I've been to or worked at is in a constant search for enough money to get through the next month/year, because the funding comes in the establish a station but then not to maintain it long-term. It's not sexy for a wishlist per se, but boy is it over-looked and much-needed. 

@hikinghack from Dinalab would probably have lots of good insights on this! 

My suggestion would probably be a 3D printer and Solder Station with a stock of common components. With those two things you can solve most problems.

See full post
discussion

Instant Detect 2.0 and related cost

I am doing a research project on rhino poaching at Kruger National Park. I was impressed with the idea of Instant Detect 2.0. I do not know the cost involved with installing that...

3 0

Hi Kaarthika, hi all,

ZSL's Instant Detect 2.0 is currently undergoing Beta testing with external partners and so is still pre-production. We therefore do not have final pricing for the system. 

Saying this, we have got a manufacturing partner fully set-up who has already completed two full build rounds of the system, one in 2020 and another in 2023. This means we actually have a very good idea of the system's build costs and what these are likely to be when we can manufacture the system in volume.

While I cannot release this pricing yet, I am confident that we will have an unparalleled proposition.

In particular, the satellite airtime package we can supply to conservationists due to the generosity of the Iridium Satellite Company means that each system can send 3,600 (25-50KB) images a month from anywhere in the world for a single fixed fee. This equates to around a 97% discount to the normal commercial rates. 

We are currently very busy fundraising so that we can make this final step to scale the system. 

If we can secure this funding, we hope to go into volume production by mid-2024.

Best wishes,

Sam

See full post
discussion

Project Update: Improving satellite ear tag transmitters for Polar Bears

I was just delighted that WWF's Sybille Klenzendorf and Mistywest's Tony Jackson joining us to talk about the polar bear ear tag they've been working on for the past few years....

5 2

Hey Rob! I also missed this variety hour thinking it was the next day. I enjoyed the recording on youtube though!

Your thoughts on distributing the components to both sides of the ear is interesting. One thing to consider is heat dessipation, I believe. I believe it is important to consider how heat conducting the part going through the ear is. A few cables would perhaps be OK. Ruggedness should have a very high priority and the more compact the device is the better, I would think.

Interesting stuff you shared about the antenna!

Cheers,

Lars

 

Cheers @Lars_Holst_Hansen , yes, the antenna foam spacer idea certainly helped us a bit. I completely agree though that ruggedness, especially on a polar bear (a bit different from a koala 'bear') is a top priority, so there's a lot to consider. 

 

Rob

See full post