discussion / Human-Wildlife Conflict  / 30 June 2017

HWC Tech Challenge - Asian Elephant Case

Join the Human Wildlife Conflict Tech Challenge!

In India alone, an average of 400 people and 100 elephants are killed every year as a result of human-wildlife conflict. You can help prevent this. 

WWF and WILDLABS challenge you to develop a new, or improved, technology tool to reduce such interactions between humans and elephants. The winning solution will receive a prize of up to 30,000 EUR. With this prize, you will refine your solution and field test it with the support of WWF's landscape teams.

The Challenge

Design a smart and integrated system incorporating existing tools to enhance the effectiveness of electric fences. The system should:

  • Detect when and where in electric fences power leaks away due to drought or obstructing vegetation that hamper full conductivity; 
  • Detect when and where an electric fence is broken by an elephant and identify the behavior of that particular animal. This will foster learning and further improvement of fence design;
  • Detect elephants approaching crop fields or villages in an early stage to allow people to respond appropriately and in a timely manner.

Ready to develop your idea? 

If you have an idea that could address this challenge, make sure you visit our detailed HWC Tech Challenge Asian Elephant Case. It's packed full of background information about the challenge, local conditions, present solutions and the interventions that are currently being used but require improvement. In essence, all the information you need to inform your tool design process. 

If you have questions about the elephant case, require more information, or have an idea but need collaborators, this is the place for you! Post a reply below and we'll make sure you get the information you need. 

 

 




Over on twitter, @adityagangadharan has floated a question that may come up for others considering this challenge: 

Cool! I see you have 3 requirements for elephant (fence integrity, behaviour & detection) - does the proposed solution have to include all?

— Aditya Gangadharan (@AdityaGangadh) July 3, 2017

The response from our Elephant Challenge team: 

Nice to see such enthusiasm!!

Re the case: yes, the idea was to have one integrated system answering all questions. There are separate tools that the teams have tested in the past but they would like to have a more smart tool with just one joint system to operate and monitor all at once. The team is inspired by the Internet of Things concept, where multiple tools communicate with each other.

Hope this helps!

 

Hi! I was wondering are all the electric fences using the same circuit design for the energiser? And do they all use a common voltage? Thanks!

Hi

The designs that I have seen roughly use the same design. They have a triggering circuit which pulses the current through a capcitor reaching 100s of volts and then the current from the capacitor is applied to a step up tranformer.

Most of them use 12 V DC, there units which are powered by mains voltage of 110V AC or 230 V AC. The farmers living in the fringe of elephant habiat might not have AC voltages continousely. In India agricultural pump sets (pumping water) are given free electricity and this current flow is limted in time. Another reason is when some times elephants raid crop, the person guarding the fence,, when he fails to stop the elephant raiding his crop, out of total fuastration some times applies the mains voltage to fence (thinking), that he could switch of the mains voltage when elephants come in contact with rhe fence, resulting in elephant mortality, hence it would be better if the design uses 12 V DC to power the fence.

 

Mohanraj

 

 

 

 

Hi there, 

It says that passive infrared motion sensors can be put together from materials available at the local electronics market. Would it be possible to get an idea of the available materials in the local area?

Thanks!