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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

Tiny, Cheap, Modular Ant Sensor Development

Andrew Quitmeyer

3 August 2020 10:18pm

Hi! Been working on this project for a decade in various forms on and off, but essentially, I want very small cheap sensors that we can place all over a tree and monitor the...

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Harold Tay

9 August 2020 11:30am

Hi Andrew,

I watched your vid and finally I've got a decent idea of what you're trying to do!  Took a while but what can I say!

I absolutely agree that the machine vision techniques are overkill and that you're on to something here.  It got me thinking about these red line lasers, which project a straight line onto a surface.  These are used in place of chalk lines in construction sometimes.  If you were to project a red laser line onto a tree branch, and focus an image of a length of that line onto a detector (LED), you could pick out the flicker in intensity as ants cross the line.

If you want to get fancy, you can use your optical mouse as the sensor, or a regular camera such as OV7660 for a couple of bucks.  You'd bolt the laser to the camera such that no matter what surface you projected the line onto, the line would show up only as pixels on row 240 (say) of the image. Now it's a matter of watching the pixel values fluctuate.  You can use the usual signal processing techniques to filter out the wrong frequencies.  Use 2 laser lines on 1 camera and you can get ant travel direction too.

 

Andrew Quitmeyer

10 August 2020 3:37pm

here's an example of an early artistic prototype

https://youtu.be/W1TdSzt3ZbM

 

 

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discussion

Tech Tutors: Creating Custom Hardware with Arduino

Akiba

12 August 2020 1:26am

Hi everyone. This is Akiba from FreakLabs and I'm half of the presenters for the upcoming Tech Tutors talk: Creating Custom Hardware with Arduino. The original title was...

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Maxine McNaughton

19 August 2020 2:23pm

Hey Akiba

Super excited for the talk tomorrow, I've only just discovered Arduino so I'm really keen to learn more!

I would be very grateful for any advice regarding using Arduino to programme AudioMoths. I'm potentially interested in exploring Arduino as I understand the Arduino Nano 33 BLE can be used to download self-taught models created on Edge Impulse?

Do you have any experience with Arduino used with Edge Impulse models? Due to 24hr activity of my subjects (human hunters), I need the AudioMoths 'listening' 24hrs, but ideally to save battery they will only be programmed to 'record' when identifying the correct sounds using trained data. Deployment will be 5 months in dense Amazon rainforest so getting the AudioMoths programmed for long durations would be incredible!

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this, thank you again!

Maxine

Akiba

1 September 2020 11:44am

Hi Maxine. 

I totally missed this post, but we'll be doing office hours once we kick off the Arduino series. In regards to your questions, at this moment, I don't see any environment to program the Audiomoth using the Arduino IDE and platform. You'd have to use a standard toolchain to program them which may be a bit daunting. I also haven't spent much time with Edge Impulse so I can't really comment on it. 

It sounds like you're looking for a smart way to trigger your "audio trap" to record during a specific event. There may actually be a few potential solutions, especially if you are looking for human hunters. This could consist of motion detection, sound level detection, sound frequency detection (ie: chainsaws), photointerruption (think a chime when entering a shop), or many other ways. Perhaps we can discuss during one of the office hours. Or if you want to start a separate thread, it may be a good opportunity to brainstorm potential solutions. 

Hope that helps.

Akiba

Maxine McNaughton

2 September 2020 11:28am

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! I think what you're proposing sounds like a real space and energy saver on the machines so very excited about this!

I'll look out for the series launch and definitely be in touch! :)

Thank you so much!

Maxine

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discussion

Tech Tutors: How do I build bespoke conservation technology?

Ellie Warren

29 July 2020 9:06pm

Hi Wildlabbers,  We hope you enjoyed our sixth Tech Tutors session tomorrow with Nigel Butcher, who tackled the question: How...

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Maxine McNaughton

20 August 2020 2:51pm

Hi Nigel

When talking about using switched regulators, does using e.g. 12V batteries with a 5V output extend the battery life or only slowly release the power so it doesn't short the device? I understand life-span is more to do with capacity and this is usually higher with voltage... but that's as far as my battery knowledge goes!

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Maxine

Nigel Butcher

21 August 2020 3:27pm

Hi Maxine,

A switched regulator rather than a fixed one doesn't use as much power trying to maintain a constant voltage. Most USB driven equipment will have internal power circuitry to reduce this further for the 3.3V etc that most chips require, so that if there are fluctuations in the 5V supply are of little consequence.  This weblink gives you an explanation.

https://www.renesas.com/sg/en/products/power-management/linear-vs-switching-regulators.html

We built our own regulators at one stage but found the off the shelf ones that I highlighted in the talk generally only use an additional 5mA of current which on most remote solar/battery operating system is negligible.

Remember: Power in Watts= Volts x Amps so you will see less current drawn from your battery at higher voltage. Battery capacites are given in Ah or mAh which is the current multiplied by the operating time in hours.

Hope this helps and good luck with your work

Nigel

 

Harold Tay

28 August 2020 4:43pm

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 constant output voltage.  This is wasteful, but on the plus side when the equipment is asleep then the linear regulator draws only microamps.  A switching regulator is as high as 95+% efficient when running close to it's rated output, but when the equipment is asleep the quiescent draw might be in the milliamp range (1000x higher).

So linear regulators do best when they are powering equipment that sleeps a lot, and switchers do well otherwise, but you'd still need to do the sums.  In general, switchers are most efficient when input and output voltages are not wildly different and the load is drawing not less than 5% of the rated current.  Switchers can also be noisy, in the electrical sense.  This can affect the quality of the data obtained, so some testing should be done.  Choosing a switching regulator is more involved than choosing a linear regulator.

Thanks,

-harold

 

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article

Designing a Camera Mount with FLIR and WWF

ARosen

24 August 2020 12:00am

Today, WWF conservation engineering intern Ashley Rosen shares insight into the process of redesigning a camera mount for FLIR thermal cameras used by rangers in the fight against poaching. Ashley's design will become a...

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article

Laure Joanny Reviews: Tech Tutors' How Do I Repair My Camera Traps?

Laure Joanny

20 August 2020 12:00am

Our first season of Tech Tutors may have wrapped, but the connections and collaborations from these episodes are still going strong! Today, we're sharing Tech Tutor presenter Laure Joanny's recap of the most important...

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Frank van der Most

7 October 2022 6:13pm

I think you are right that there can be a lot of sharing on fixing camera traps! However, instead of setting up infrastructure for repair instructions, why not use an existing one...
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funding

Challenge: ElephantEdge

Smart Parks

11 August 2020 12:00am

Protecting elephants from conservation's most pressing issues like poaching and human-wildlife conflict requires big, bold, and innovative solutions. Hackster.io, Smart Parks, Edge Impulse, Microsoft, and several other...

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article

Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching

Sam Seccombe

10 August 2020 12:00am

Since 2016, ZSL’s Instant Detect team have been working on improving metal detecting sensors for anti-poaching. The team believe that using metal detecting sensors will provide a highly targeted detection of potential...

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event

Event: StreamingScience's #Tech4Wildlife Thursdays

StreamingScience

3 August 2020 12:00am

Join Conservation Technology Educator Andrew Schulz each Thursday at 7:00pm EST for #Tech4Wildlife Thursdays, a casual chat event with friends from the conservation tech community. Many of these chats will feature...

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event

How do I use portable genomics in the field?

Ineke Knot

3 August 2020 12:00am

Our eighth WILDLABS Tech Tutor is Ineke Knot, who tackled the question: How do I use portable genomics in the field? You can catch up on this tutorial on our Youtube channel and read through the callaborative notes...

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article

Tracking Wild Reptiles, Amphibians, And Their Temperatures

WILDLABS Team

31 July 2020 12:00am

In this case study from herpetologist Emily Taylor, we learn about the best methods and gear used to track snakes, lizards, and other reptiles and amphibians via radio-telemetry, and how these techniques have changed...

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Edgar M. fortune

15 September 2023 11:02pm

Hi, have we had any break throughs in radio transmitters for snakes, surgery is way too invasive in my opinion. It works but we need to look at different technologies. 
Jennifer Lisa Insupp

16 October 2023 4:07pm

Hi, I would also be interested if any new technologies recently turned up and if you may have a list of producers?
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discussion

OpenCollar Update 2

Laurens de Groot

7 May 2019 12:49pm

OpenCollar is on fire! And by saying that we mean we’re steaming towards putting the first open-source modular elephant tracking collar into the wild to protect these...

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DuskaD

1 June 2019 12:14pm

Cool stuff Laurens! I'm closely following the open collar developments which triggers some ideas on what we could do for the river dolphins. Look forward to connect shortly! Cheers

Stephanie O'Donnell

28 August 2019 11:18am

Hey Laurens, 

How did your field tests in Rwanda go? 

Steph

Akiba

30 July 2020 4:04am

Hi. I've been following the opencollar initiative and was wondering what the current status is. The project looks amazing!

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discussion

New article: Bridge et al. 2019 An Arduino-Based RFID Platform for Animal Research

Yvan Satgé

17 July 2019 2:13pm

Eli Brigge and colleagues just published a nice article detailing their open-source RFID logger. The article is in open access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo....

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Harold Tay

18 July 2019 2:33am

@TedHowardNZ is this something you could use?

Yvan Satgé

23 July 2020 11:16am

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, though: USD139. 

Note that these are NOT sold by Eli's team: Eli made the design open-source so LabMaker updated and produced some.

Yvan

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event

Training Opportunity: Durrell Conservation Academy

Durrell Conservation Academy

16 July 2020 12:00am

Durrell Conservation Academy is now accepting applications for their popular training course program, taking place in 2021. These courses cover a wide range of general and specific conservation subjects, including GIS...

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event

How do I repair my camera traps?

WILDLABS Team

13 July 2020 12:00am

Our fifth WILDLABS Tech Tutors are Laure Joanny, Rob Appleby, and Alistair Stewart, who teamed up to tackle the question: How do I repair my camera traps? You can catch up on this tutorial on our Youtube channel and...

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discussion

Seeking research projects related to monitoring wildlife behavior

Benjamin Seleb

20 June 2020 3:34pm

Hi all, my name is Ben Seleb and I'm an incoming robotics PhD student at Georgia Tech. I've been given the awesome opportunity to identify my own research topic, and I...

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Carly Batist

22 June 2020 8:54pm

Hi Ben!

I think we've had correspondence on Twitter in the past, but can't remember for sure... Anyways, I'm a primatology PhD student and do fieldwork in Madagascar studying lemurs (specifically Ranomafana National Park). My dissertation is on lemur vocal communication, but I am doing an applied chapter focused on passive acoustic monitoring as well. I've tested out a bunch of different PAM devices (ARU's-autonomous recording units) e.g., SongMeter, Swift, AudioMoth and am currently annotating call files and prepping a training dataset that I hope to begin using with an ML model to identify species-specific calls. Vocals are a great use-case with behavior and tech as you can sometimes ID contexts, individuals, etc based on acoustic structure or usage which would be really cool (albeit very complicated) to incorporate. 

Also have some experience with camera-traps, and the area I work in in Mada is part of the TEAM network so I'm hoping to incorporate camera-traps and ARUs in the same area. I work with local  researchers and students (via the Malagasy-run Centre ValBio research station) and am looking to develop community-led initiatives as well so I've got the low-cost, open-source interest as well.  

I'll stop typing an essay now, but definitely would love to chat!! Feel free to message me on Twitter or email me (cbatist@gradcenter.cuny.edu). 

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event

Event: Arm’s AI Virtual Tech Sessions

Arm

9 June 2020 12:00am

Want to sharpen your machine learning skills and get advice from experts on getting started with tinyML development? Arm's new AI Virtual Tech Sessions for Software Developers will walk you through a series of demos and...

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article

Innovator Interview: Hack the Poacher

WILDLABS Team

4 June 2020 12:00am

Conservation technology largely consists of two categories: tools to monitor and study wildlife and their habitats, and solutions to mitigate or prevent negative human impacts. The fight against poaching in particular...

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