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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

Rainforest SigFox available for use

Roland Kays

26 August 2022 6:09pm

Hi EveryoneJust FYI that right now we now have a SigFox gateway running to create an IoT network at the Los Amigos field station in lowland Peruvian Amazon.  Amazing forest,...

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Carly Batist

26 September 2022 10:20pm

Hi Roland,

This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.! 

Antoine Ede

10 October 2022 8:33am

Hi Rolland,

Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)? 

Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.

Roland Kays

18 October 2022 11:55am

Hi Everyone,

We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating.  Getting a gateway cost us $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power.  There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test).  So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages  (once we stabilized the power supply).  I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag.  We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail.  So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.

cheers

Roland

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Link

New paper: Benthic animal-borne sensors & citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling

Carly Batist

10 October 2022 4:15pm

"We develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth, temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry & citizen-science mark-recapture records for the flapper skate in Scotland."

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Read "Benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling | Scientific Reports" on Nature

Benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling | Scientific Reports

Developments in animal electronic tagging and tracking have transformed the field of movement ecology, but interest is also growing in the contributions of tagged animals to oceanography. Animal-borne sensors can address data gaps, improve ocean model skill and support model validation, but previous studies in this area have focused almost exclusively on satellite-telemetered seabirds and seals. Here, for the first time, we develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth and temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry and citizen-science mark-recapture records from 2016–17 for the Critically Endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in Scotland. By comparing temperature observations to predictions from the West Scotland Coastal Ocean Modelling System, we quantify model skill and empirically validate an independent model update. The results from bottom-temperature and temperature-depth profile validation (5,324 observations) fill a key data gap in Scotland. For predictions in 2016, we identified a consistent warm bias (mean = 0.53 °C) but a subsequent model update reduced bias by an estimated 109% and improved model skill. This study uniquely demonstrates the use of benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen-science data for ocean model validation, broadening the range of animal oceanographers in aquatic environments.

Nature
discussion

Mangrove soundscape

Camilo Sierra F.

27 August 2022 4:57pm

Hello everyone, I am currently working on the restoration of mangroves in an area of Colombia. I want to do an acoustic monitoring inside the mangrove. I want to record...

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Carly Batist

29 August 2022 2:47pm

You might check out the devices listed in the Conservation Tech Directory - you can search for 'acoustic recorder' or 'ARU' or something like that.

The most common off-the-shelf models (other than Frontier Labs' BARLTs mentioned above😊) are Open Acoustic Devices Audiomoths & Hydromoths (which may be particularly useful for you since they come in completely watertight cases that can be stuck underwater for deployments), Wildlife Acoustics' SongMeter series, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Swift units.  

 

David Savage

30 August 2022 10:10pm

Camilo--

Are you interested only in airborne sounds or do you want to deploy hydrophones? That decision would inform a lot of other decisions about your purchase of equipment, as would having a clearer picture of your budget.

Liz Ferguson

23 September 2022 5:39pm

Hi there Camilo, 

What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options: 

SoundTraps - are very commonly used and perform quite well: 

SonarPoints - these are also a great instrument option: 

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discussion

Avian nest box monitoring 

jasonsali

14 September 2022 2:30pm

Hi. I’m hoping there’s a guru out there who can advise on tech for monitoring conditions inside avian nest boxes? Links to data loggers and endoscopes they’ve used successfully...

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jasonsali

14 September 2022 3:08pm

Maybe this is a starting point. Any idea if this product would work inside the box. Kestrel DROP D3 Wireless Temperature, Humidity & Pressure Data Logger https://amzn.eu/d/5VdQwtA  

Colin Cook

23 September 2022 12:34pm

I'd be interested in any camera monitoring setups that can be used inside a nest box. Most camera traps are too bulky for this purpose. All the devices I've looked at either need a wired connection or a wifi network to transmit images. I want one that can store all info to an SD card and preferably be solar powered. Obviously infrared or starlight sensitivity. Sound recording would be a bonus for some bird monitoring I want to do.

Nigel Butcher

23 September 2022 1:16pm

Done lots of this over the years and it depends on the species really. If you want incubation behaviour  and hence success or otherwise using temperature then the Thermocron IButton DS1921G is perfect. The new Blue Maestro is an option I became aware of this year but I haven't tested at scale.

In terms of cameras and endoscopes I've tailored many off the shelf products and built a few from scratch. When I get chance I'll have a look around and see what is still available.

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discussion

Virtual fencing / Kinetic energy harvesting / Holistic grazing

David Blažević

16 June 2022 7:12am

Hi everyone, Stephanie invited me to share some recent developments in Finalnd.I'm David and I'm a mechanical engineer from Rijeka, Croatia, working as a Marie Curie postdoc at...

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Lars Holst Hansen

31 July 2022 5:15pm

I see, thanks!

One daily fix is quite limiting.

Do you have an idea how KEH might affect accelerometry?

Cheers,

David Blažević

2 September 2022 11:05am

I don't think KEH would influence accelerometry at all.

One other way to think about it is - the KEH is a movement sensor itself.

The GPS is quite a severe factor in the energy balance of the system, so if the data is perhaps not transmitted constantly, more frequent locks could be achieved. I believe GPS transceivers are becoming more and more efficient and the KEH enabled GPS should become an option soon.

 

Kr,

D-

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article

Ceres Wild Rhino application 

Kim Lane

22 August 2022 1:29am

An update on Ceres Tags products that are being used in conservation 

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Kim Lane

29 September 2022 4:05am

Some updates and a news report on the Malilangwe Trust application of devices; Ceres Trace and Ceres Wild
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article

CERES TAG

Kim Lane

22 July 2022 3:36am

Ceres Tag sends just in time alerts and GPS location to have the power to track and trace.

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discussion

The battery challenge - how to reduce battery waste

Femke Hilderink

8 February 2019 2:00pm

Hi everyone, So much great stuff is being developed here! Currently, the use of technology in conservation has become quite normal. We are all familiar with camera traps and...

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David Savage

29 June 2022 8:47pm

Realizing I'm hopping onto this thread late, but I think one of the easiest ways to handle batteries is simply to work to minimize energy consumption--identify areas where we can improve deployment duration while generating comparable ecological knowledge. For example, in the case of the acoustic sensors I work with, can we reduce sample rates and still pick up our species of interest? Can we use a sparser duty cycle while still generating sufficient information to answer whatever our relevant questions are?

Robert (Bob) Zak

15 July 2022 10:09pm

So-called "Li-Ion AA" batteries are a potential alternative to NiMH for applications requiring AA form-factor batteries.  These "batteries" contain internal power converter to go from Li-Ion cell voltage (3.7V) to AA standard 1.5 Volt.  Based on lab (not field) experiments, they perform better than NiMH over temperature, and have a longer lifetime,  though they are more expensive.  I suspect they have the same (eventual) disposal issues.   

Robert (Bob) Zak

15 July 2022 10:16pm

On the topic of potential sources for harvested power, and in the category of "out there"...   I have spent some considerable (likely too much) time exploring harvesting power from diurnal temperature variation using thermal reservoir(s) and thermo-electric generator(s).  The physics is not too bad, but the engineering is a bear.    Project currently on hold, but if someone is interested, happy to discuss. 

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article

Fast Company Feature: Smart Parks

Stephanie O'Donnell

14 July 2022 4:19pm

“It’s such a massive leap forwards knowing where every rhino is every morning and every evening.” Fast Company writes about Smart Parks, a Netherlands-based organization with technological solutions against poaching.

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discussion

A Triphibian Surveillance Vehicle

Ayush Jamdar

9 July 2022 2:23pm

Hey all!I am Ayush, a core team member of my school's Robotics Club (Center For Innovation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras). There is one project - The Triphibian - we are...

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