Sensors | WILDLABS

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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?

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Sensors already equip a range of tools to enhance monitoring capacity for conservation. Some of the higher bandwidth technologies, like camera traps and acoustic monitoring systems, have been essential elements of the conservation toolkit for decades, and thus have enough users that we've created dedicated WILDLABS groups to address them. But a whole range of lower bandwidth sensors beyond these core technologies are being increasingly integrated into conservation monitoring systems, and offer rich new insights into the wildlife and ecosystems we're all working to protect. As with many technologies, cost and access have historically been challenges to the adoption of new sensors, but with low-cost and open-source solutions on the rise, we're excited to see what the future of this space holds.

Getting Started with Sensors:

Watch Shah Selbe's Tech Tutors episode on scaling FieldKit, an open-source conservation sensor toolbox, from a project to a successful conservation tech product.
Check out our Virtual Meetup about Low-Cost, Open-Source Solutions in conservation tech, including a talk by Alasdair Davies on the Arribada Initiative's work with thermal sensors in early warning systems.
For a more in-depth introduction, watch the first video in our datalogger mini-series: Freaklabs: How do I get started with Arduino?

In this group, you'll meet others who are using and innovating diverse sensors in their work, discuss ways to make sensors more effective & accessible for conservationists, learn about what sensors are already helping us accomplish in the field, and have the opportunity to ask and answer questions. Join this group to get started!

Header image: Emma Vogel, University of Tromsø

Article

Bringing Conservation Technology to Life

Shah Selbe

We are living in the midst of a pretty exciting era. Never before has humanity been more educated, more connected, more enabled, or more empowered than we are today. There are many reasons to be optimistic about the...

17 February 2016

Article

Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge: Winners Announced!

WILDLABS Admin

From artificial “sniffer” technologies to portable DNA sequencers, the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge received hundreds of innovative ideas to help stamp out wildlife crime. Now, the Challenge is proud to announce 16...

22 January 2016

Article

Deep Coral Reef Exploration and Discovery: Two-way Technological Flow

WILDLABS Admin

David Gruber, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, is a marine biologist working to develop fluorescent proteins into modulatable probes with neurobiological and medical applications. In his talk for the WWF Fuller...

24 December 2015

Article

Cheap Space, DIY Imaging and Big Data

WILDLABS Admin

John Amos, President of SkyTruth, explores how remote sensing is being used in conservation today and the importance of sky-truthing. He examines the role that citizen scientists can play in increasing transparency in...

21 December 2015

Article

The Impact of the Internet of Things

WILDLABS Admin

Gary Atkinson, Director of Emerging Technologies at ARM, explains why we should be interested in the Internet of Things. Could it be a game changer for conservation?

10 December 2015

Article

The Social Lives of Conservation Technologies and Why They Matter

Chris Sandbrook

New technologies offer a lot of potential for conservation, but are there potential risks to deploying these new technologies? In this first thought piece for the Ethics of Conservation Tech Group, Dr Chris Sandbrook...

2 November 2015

Description	Activity	Replies	Groups	Updated
Tree Canopy Tools workshop	Have you ever wanted to get a sample from the top of a tree, without having to climb it or shoot it out with a shotgun? Would it...		Sensors	4 years 9 months ago
Leg band-style tags...but for mammals	Hello Rob, I have seen the bracelet style used on large mammals with mixed success and failure. The main considerations are terrain the animal uses, and fitting the bracelet...		Sensors	4 years 9 months ago
Tiny, Cheap, Modular Ant Sensor Development	Amazing stuff Andrew! The dips in light idea made me think of exoplanet hunting straight away! Such a cool idea!!		Sensors	4 years 10 months ago
Tech Tutors: Creating Custom Hardware with Arduino	Hi Akiba No worries, thanks for responding! I'd love to delve into more detail on this once the new series has started and I have an idea of the tools and kit required!...		Open Source Solutions, Sensors	4 years 11 months ago
Tech Tutors: How do I build bespoke conservation technology?	Hi Maxine, There are pros and cons to switching regulators and linear regulators. Linear regulators "throw away" the excess voltage in order to maintain a...		Open Source Solutions, Sensors	4 years 11 months ago
OpenCollar Update 2	Hi. I've been following the opencollar initiative and was wondering what the current status is. The project looks amazing!		Sensors	5 years ago
New article: Bridge et al. 2019 An Arduino-Based RFID Platform for Animal Research	Hi all, Some ETAG rfid-readers developped by Eli Bridge et al. are now avaible at https://www.labmaker.org/collections/earth-and-ecology/products/etag. The price is high,...		Sensors	5 years ago
Interest in group order of ETag RFID readers	Hi all, Some ETAG rfid-readers are now avaible at https://www.labmaker.org/collections/earth-and-ecology/products/etag. The price is high, though: USD139. Yvan		Sensors	5 years ago
Seeking research projects related to monitoring wildlife behavior	I'd love to chat more! I'll be reaching out soon!		Sensors	5 years 1 month ago
sound loop devise	Yes im hoping the power bank and a few extra mp3s will get it done this year. will look into a better system this winter now that I have some help:)		Sensors	5 years 3 months ago
Notification systems for trap activation	Please see my edits above	+4	Sensors	5 years 3 months ago
Mesh Powered Software Defined Radios	We are developing a Raspberry Pi 4 sized SDR --- frequency range 20Mhz-6GHz. Rx Sensitivity around 120 --- higher is possible with some...		Sensors	5 years 3 months ago