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 for Animal and People and Best Transmissin medium for monitor...... ?
2 January 2024 7:39pm
I've had success re-charging up lithium batteries for acoustic monitors in a tropical forest using a simple setup of a couple 50W solar panels (lightweight, flexible type) + portable power station + battery chargers. Data transmission was done by walking to the monitors to collect the SD cards, though, since networking them was not an option for me - not sure if that'll work for your application :)
24 January 2024 5:32pm
Hi Om,
This is a difficult problem, and one that I am actively working on currently. It is a particularly difficult problem in a densely forested environment.
The approach that Alice describes is often referred to as "Sneakernet", which is short for put on your sneakers and run around to all of the units swapping out memory storage and batteries.
In a lot of environments, sneakernet is actually the best-in-class state-of-the-art solution. I am working to change this.
That said, depending on your specific environment and project dynamics, there may be less laborious solutions.
Could you share more details about your project? For example, what is the size of the area you plan to monitor? How many sensors (audio recorders) do you want to deploy per hector? Do you have access to the canopy? How much sun do you expect to get? What are the seasonal high/low temps? What kind of audio do you want to record? What fidelity? 24/7/365 or just specific periods? How close is your project area to infrastructure?
24 January 2024 7:44pm
Great conversation. Please solve this, it will be helpful for my audio project.
So… if you have enough power, then my sound localization audio recorder might be what you need. Connect this up to a 5G modem and add a wireguard VPN and you can record audio with an accurate clock and pull the files back remotely. Microsecond clock accuracy with supporting sound localization software
Note, I will be trying this soon myself. I have the 5G modem. Now just the time.
25 January 2024 6:15am
This is actually a super big problem.
Its wierd how there are not more off-the-shelf solutions for this - I guess the field is just too niche.
If you're system is using a raspberry pi I did find one pretty solid off the shelf option for power scheduling:
![](/sites/default/files/embeds/15d29d4e801deff7b2fccb98815c78c8.jpg)
Witty Pi 4 HAT - RTC & Power Management for Raspberry Pi
Witty Pi 4 is an add-on board that adds real-time clock and power management to your Raspberry Pi. It can define your Raspberry Pi’s ON/OFF sequence and significantly reduce ...
![](/sites/default/files/embeds/4e245868a228eb3c4e39ac8bee19859f.png)
I have also put a lot of effort in designing our own power managing device - but it is not yet ready for the big time, we're hoping to get it field tested this year...
I would certainly value your input! For our immediate use case we basically just need an ultra low power way to turn a 5v switching regulator on and off - however I am trying to design for wider use cases! If you could layout some of your system requirements here that would actually be a big help:
- What are your current systems?
- What are those systems power requirements (required voltages, required amperage, etc)
- What does your solar setup look like?
- What are your connectivity requirements?
- What are your form factor requirements?
Here's is the current repo for our design:
GitHub - diyaquanauts/BuoyPower
Contribute to diyaquanauts/BuoyPower development by creating an account on GitHub.
![](/sites/default/files/embeds/ad667adaa2cfe8f3caa4a41b7d0a79a1.png)
And if you really want to get into the nitty gritty, I put together a video explaining the design work so far:
Alice Michel