Feedback Needed: Wireless Camera Traps

2017/10/04 03:33

I am interested in making long distance wireless camera traps ( approx 15 kms), but as a proof of concept i am trying to make a short distance one (approx 500 metre) first, possibly using a zigbee controller. In the system, my vision is to make a camera trap(s) that can send the images taken by it to a master system (like a PC) over short distances, using zigbee. I'd like to know your thoughts on the feasibility and problems related to such a system?

Thanks in Advance

leafy_forest

2017/10/06 05:34

In reply to Vasudev

This is what I tackling now. Long distance, the only thing I can think of is something like LoRa. But with zigbee (has issues when not line of site) you could do something like this, but the packet size might be an issue for photos (I have never used them for this purpose, only for sensor data). I am building a POC for this now. I was even exploring using old phones and mesh those with WIFI, then send that all to a sink and then out of the field via satelite or traditional means.

Vasudev

2017/10/12 18:36

In reply to leafy_forest

Thank you for the suggestion for LoRa, i hadn't considered it. I also had the same doubts regarding poor range possibility in case of zigbee. A mesh would be a good idea if i could implement it. What are the major difficulties you've faced while implementing a project like this?

Vasudev

2017/10/18 17:54

In reply to leafy_forest

LoRa is an excellent suggestion. Pardon my limited knowledge but i believe zigbee might give a low signal range due to heavy forest cover also. What other difficulties did you face in such a system which you think i might be overlooking?

Alasdair

2017/10/19 10:51

Hi Vasudev,

Great to hear that you are interested in developing a long distance wireless camera trap. I have been experimenting too and have an open source project as part of the Arribada Initiative that you are free to use to accelerate your efforts . You could take the case design and fit LoRa, or you could use the base WiFi setup we installed to get some good throughput.

Take a look at;

https://github.com/IRNAS/arribada-amp
http://irnas.eu/other%20projects/2017/08/21/arboreal-monitoring-platform...

Kind regards,

Alasdair

leafy_forest

2017/10/19 22:01

In reply to Vasudev

Hi,

Sorry, for my lateness in writing. I am the process of moving countries and continents, so have been a busy, finally getting time to sit down to go over messages.

There was another radio that was meshable and had no issues with penetrating walls. I saw it used for industrial purposes. But the name is slipping my mind. And yes, zigbee is not so great when it comes to heavy cover.

Unfortunately, I don't have much experience in this environment. I have worked more in open fields. I am just starting to experiment with radios for the forest. If I do think of anything I will post it here.

Alasdair

2017/10/20 07:44

Here's an overview of the open design that you could use to experiment with;

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AKHGQmcsi_pdKvI&id=EF7272B42226A337!...

staylor

2017/10/25 18:32

For transmission of images over low baud rate, lossy wireless connections (such as you'd encounter with your target distances) you may want to investigate 'SSDV', as used by hobbyists to transmit images from high altitude balloons ('HABs') over extreme distances at extreme low power:

https://ukhas.org.uk/guides:ssdv

This method splits a JPEG image into packets that can be reassembled by the receiver. The data can be transmitted repeatedly to increase the chance that packets are successfully received, or if the connection is sufficient for a bidirectional link, packets can be requested for retransmission. If those methods fail and packets are lost, the lost packets leave holes in the reassembled image but the rest of the image survives.

Search for 'HAB LoRa SSDV' for more material on the subject.

Best regards,

Simon

chrisgnicholas

2017/10/28 02:32

excellent to find Alasdair and company here :-)

a few things - while the hardware is cheap, official LORA protocol is non-trivial to actually implement; one needs to build and configure nodes, gateways, and servers, as per: https://docs.loraserver.io/overview/architecture/ ... but the hardware is getting super-cheap...given some level of peer-peer comm, an alternative approach might be to just run a lightweight mesh library, like 'Radiohead' (http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/arduino/RadioHead/) on the LORA modules, like: http://www.hoperf.com/rf_transceiver/Enhanced_Power/RFM95PW.html .

The "concentrator" approach, with a companion Ubiquiti link is indeed interesting; lots of interesting DIY parabolic reflectors can get things a long way with cheap WiFI:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/217298750746671885/ , etc

I've personally been working towards LONG range signalling, with a companion long-range, fixed-wing drone "harvesting" approach, as per: http://www.wadi.io . Rather than 100mw ISM band LORA, I'm thinking repurposed 5W commodity ~$40 Yaesu walkie-talkie radios with an Arduino controling the "push-to-talk" and doing old-skool FSK, as per: http://www.mobilinkd.com/2014/09/11/arduino-kiss-tnc/ . Of course more power-hungry, etc.

While on this thread, one other thought I've had is how to retrofit a StealthCam to enable automated harvesting harvesting of its SD card by a companion RPI Zero or sometihng by "faking it out" to think the user has put it in USB slave mode. as per page 22 of

http://www.gsmoutdoors.com/downloads/file/65f10f4b-f967-4ebe-8afd-cd5554... ,

"By simply turning the unit to the OFF position, and plugging the USB mini end into the camera and the standard USB end into the computer, the computer will register the camera as a card reading device."

I was thinking was to open it up and connect some GPIO wires with conductive glue to the contacts that the little slider switch goes across on the front panel, and somehow electrically isolate it so the camera can draw power from the USB cable as well when it was back in the 'ON' position...

lots to do!

Chris

Vasudev

2017/10/29 00:28

In reply to chrisgnicholas

Man! That's a lot of good ideas. Noob questions: Do you have any suggestions on how to replace the slider mechanism so that we can switch it On and Off at will to read the data(as in the last approach)?

Also, is it possible to open the unit up at all without destroying it/ is the stealthcam circuit sealed?

Redfoxmeek

2017/10/29 21:08

In reply to Vasudev

In Australia we have been working towards a system that can detect, identify and send a message from the field to a smart phone/pc etc.. This is using satellite and smart technology. It is an enormous endeavour but we hope to field test our device early 2018. At present the device is designed to detect wild dogs that are a predator of livestock in some parts of Australia, but ultimately this device may be modified for detecting any species so long as we can train the algorithm with lots of images of the target. Transmission of the image has been challenging for our team but we believe we are now well over the hump https://www.pestsmart.org.au/wild-dog-alert