WILDLABS logo

WILDLABS logo

Group

Drones / Feed

Used to pick up signals from tracking gear on the ground, collect images of wildlife and habitats from the air, gather acoustic data with specialized hydrophones, or even collect snot samples from whales' blowholes, drones are capable of collecting high-resolution data quickly, noninvasively, and at relatively low cost.

discussion

Global model for Livestock detection in airborne imagery - Data, Applications, and Needs

benweinstein

12 August 2024 8:19pm

Hi all,I was at a AI for ecology working group a few weeks ago and was asked to look into an airborne model for detecting livestock to assist in land-management, agriculture and...

2 2
Elsa Carla De Grandi

12 August 2024 11:03pm

Hi @benweinstein,

An open-source detector would be great!  from my point of view it would be ideal if it could be applied to Very High Resolution satellite imagery.

Maybe you are aware of this already but there seems to be a group at Missisipi State University who is putting together a platform for Aerial Wildlife Image Repository (AWIR) to promote research and storage of wildlife imagery and data (I haven't looked into it - it seems you'd need to sign up but looks potentially useful).

They have recently published a paper and their dataset is open source.

I would also suggest posting this discussion in the "Remote Sensing & GIS" and the "Drone" group.

Cheers, 

Elsa

benweinstein

14 August 2024 7:10pm

Thanks, I grabbed those datasets already. I know about that website, put couldn't quite make sense of it. It says 'open repository', but then there is a login page with no way to request to join as far as I can tell. 

See full post
discussion

Open Source Photogrammetry Software

Lindy Clyde Knowles

15 June 2022 9:43pm

Hi All,I'm searching for an open sourced photogrammetry software to swap out Pix4D/Agisoft/DroneDeploy. I've seen mention of OpenDroneMap, but I've struggled with getting it...

5 0
Sarah Dalrymple

28 June 2022 10:21am

Hi Lindy, ODM has a steep learning curve but is fantastic once you understand it. I have much better results than from commerical services, although we were just stitching fairly small (<10ha) areas.

Have a look at WebODM Lightning, this is a paid-for, but very cheap, processing service using ODM that is more similar to commercial services (upload your images, press go). You can upload using the web interface or a Windows app. 

Steffen Döring

7 February 2023 11:39am

Hi Lindy,

WebODM has now a native Windows installer version which costs around 147 $ once - https://opendronemap.org/webodm/download/.

Is has almost all the advantages of the high priced softwares and even presets for some use cases.

Best regards!

Steffen

See full post
discussion

Drones for GIS Best practice Document

Adrian Hughes

31 March 2020 10:42am

We've just released the latest version of our best practice document   General refresh and update based on knowledge acquired over the last couple of years...

12 1
Steffen Döring

9 August 2024 1:09pm

Hi Nilaksha,

maybe this is interesting too 😉 My free manual 'Drones in Biomonitoring' - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8077113 can help to get (more) knowledge how to proceed easily and successfully 😉 

It covers topics from buy to fly and data processing.

📖 The manual was developed to help authorities, landscape conservation / maintenance or nature conservation associations etc. in nature conservation to manage their growing monitoring tasks more effectively and cost-efficiently.
🛸 The use of drones can contribute in many ways to increasing the effectiveness of monitoring, reducing costs and minimizing disturbance - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steffen-Doering.

Best regards!
Steffen

See full post
discussion

Seeking Advice on Thermal Drones for Night-Time Elephant Observation

Nilaksha Rathnayake

25 December 2023 9:53am

Hi everyone,I'm looking for an affordable yet effective thermal drone to observe elephants at night in Sri Lanka, aiming to address human-elephant conflict. Has anyone used...

12 0
Nilaksha Rathnayake

16 February 2024 8:34am

@PaulAllin Thanks for your valuable insights. Zenmuse H20N seems to be very powerful and useful in this case. However, I'm looking for a more affordable option for a self-funded research. 

Steffen Döring

9 August 2024 12:55pm

Hi Nilaksha,

maybe it helps 😉 My free manual 'Drones in Biomonitoring' - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8077113 can help to get (more) knowledge how to proceed easily and successfully 😉 

It covers topics from buy to fly and data processing.

📖 The manual was developed to help authorities, landscape conservation / maintenance or nature conservation associations etc. in nature conservation to manage their growing monitoring tasks more effectively and cost-efficiently.
🛸 The use of drones can contribute in many ways to increasing the effectiveness of monitoring, reducing costs and minimizing disturbance - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steffen-Doering.

Best regards!
Steffen

See full post
discussion

Drones for IUU (illegal fishing activities & vessel monitoring)

Adam Roberts

20 March 2023 6:00am

Hi, new to Wildlabs and happy to have found itI am currently working on drone design (fixed wing), for the purpose of monitoring illegal fishing vessels. This will be done via...

6 4
Adam Roberts

11 April 2023 5:48am

Hi Frank! Thanks so much for your reply. Yes I have been looking into the same sort of workflow as with camera traps etc and seem to be getting somewhere (although am yet to have my own data set with which to check!). 

Yes, with the transponder issue, actually NONE of the boats here have them! There has been a push to get boats to install them further down the coast, but it was marred by the usual corruption and forceless enforcement. So everything will be visual, rather than working on any signal given out by the boats themselves. I am looking into ai programs that can analyse footage and as you say, it can be done with species so I see no reason it cannot be done with vessels given the parameters to look for

 

Frank van der Most

14 April 2023 12:57am

Seeing the pictures that @lmccaskill uploaded got my brain storming, so to say. Are you working with similar small boats? I was assuming bigger fishing ships that are registered somewhere. If the boats are not registered and there are no existing photos of them, and you want to identify the individual boats, you'll need to build your own catalogue to train an AI.

However / in addition, if the boats have written text on them with a name or a code or number, like in the pictures, then it should be ridiculously easy to identify boats. No AI needed. I discovered recently that my laptop has started showing find results based on text in photos. If different boats are of the same model, again like in the pictures, then there is nothing else left than what is written on them ... well, perhaps the color scheme.

... or perhaps face recognition if the image quality allows it. But then you'll be at square 1 again with training an AI.

Steffen Döring

9 August 2024 12:48pm

Hi all,

maybe it helps 😉 My free manual 'Drones in Biomonitoring' - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8077113 can help to get (more) knowledge how to proceed easily and successfully 😉 It covers topics from buy to fly and data processing.

📖 The manual was developed to help authorities, landscape conservation / maintenance or nature conservation associations etc. in nature conservation to manage their growing monitoring tasks more effectively and cost-efficiently.
🛸 The use of drones can contribute in many ways to increasing the effectiveness of monitoring, reducing costs and minimizing disturbance - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steffen-Doering.

Best regards!
Steffen

See full post
discussion

Selecting a thermal imaging drone for wildlife monitoring

Doug Osborn

24 July 2023 4:52am

Hi All,I'm in a small volunteer conservation group in the inner western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. We care for a small patch of remnant wetlands, and work closely with the...

7 1
Philipp Ramjoué

29 August 2023 12:42pm

Hi Doug,

we are a young startup that uses AI as a tool in nature and wildlife conservation. At the moment we develop a drone with on-board AI (for object detection) and thermal and "normal" camera. If you want to know more about the project, you can contact me [email protected]. I would be happy to help you.

 

Steffen Döring

9 August 2024 12:45pm

Hi all,

maybe it helps 😉 My free manual 'Drones in Biomonitoring' - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8077113 can help to get (more) knowledge how to proceed easily and successfully 😉

📖 The manual was developed to help authorities, landscape conservation / maintenance or nature conservation associations etc. in nature conservation to manage their growing monitoring tasks more effectively and cost-efficiently.
🛸 The use of drones can contribute in many ways to increasing the effectiveness of monitoring, reducing costs and minimizing disturbance - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steffen-Doering.

Best regards!
Steffen

See full post
discussion

Mass Detection of Wildlife Snares Using Airborne Synthetic Radar

David Gaynor

7 January 2024 6:50am

Mass Detection of Wildlife Snares Using Airborne Synthetic RadarFor the last year my colleauges Prof. Mike Inggs (Radar - Electrical Engineering, Unviversity of Cape Town) and...

37 7
David Gaynor

14 July 2024 9:54am

Hi Heinrich,  you are absolutely right about the need for long-endurance drone for such a mission on 250km^2.

Taking a full frame 35mm camera with a 35mm (wide angle) lens  you would have a field of view of  123 metres  x 83 metres (looking straight down, you want to be looking at an angle and doing this in high contrast lighting, preferably with the sun behind the camera).

If the area was a square 15.8km x15.8km you would need to do 16 km / 123m = 128 transects to cover the area which is 16km x 128 = 2,057km which if flying at 135 km (safe speed for game counting in a high wing Cessna 182)  is 15.23 hours of flying.

Endurance and speed in commercially available drones - is what is stopping drones from realising their conservation potential.

Attached is initial (conservative)  design performance details.

Contact me on +27 72 472 5318 and we can discuss this further.

 

See full post
Link

Handbook 'Drones in Biomonitoring & Nature Conservation'

Steffen Döring

27 June 2024 9:16pm

The use of drones can contribute in various ways to increase the effectiveness of monitoring, reduce costs, and minimize disturbances.
This manual has been developed to support conservation efforts and to help make the growing monitoring tasks more effective and cost-efficient.

0
article

New WILDLABS Funding & Finance group

Frank van der Most

5 June 2024 3:24pm

WildLabs will soon launch a 'Funding and Finance' group. What would be your wish list for such a group? Would you be interested in co-managing or otherwise helping out?

3 2
Alex Rood

5 June 2024 4:14pm

This is great, Frank! @StephODonnell, maybe we can try to bring someone from #Superorganism (@tomquigley ?) or another venture company (#XPRIZE) into the fold!
Paul Edonga

6 June 2024 1:38am

I find the group to be dope, fundraising in the realm of conservation has been tough especially for emerging conservation leaders. There are no centralized grants tracking common...
See full post
discussion

Using drones and camtraps to find sloths in the canopy

Frank van der Most

18 July 2023 7:39pm

Recently, I started volunteering for Sloth Conservation Foundation and learned that it is extremely difficult to find sloths in the canopy  because: 1) they hardly move,...

27 4
Eve T Bohnett

6 May 2024 4:29pm

Yes,  if the canopy is sparse enough, you can see through the canopy with TIR what you cannot see in the RGB. We had tested with large mammals like rhinos and elephants that we could not see at all with the RGB under a semi-sparse canopy but were very clearly visible in TIR. It was actually quite surprising how easily we could detect the mammals under the canopy. It's likely similar for mid-sized mammals that live in the canopy that those drier seasons will be much easier to detect, although we did not test small mammals for visibility through the seasons. Other research has and there are a number of studies on primates now. 

I did quite a bit of flying above the canopy, and did not have many problems. It's just a matter of always flying bit higher than the canopy. There are built in crash avoidance mechanisms in the drones themselves for safety so they do not crash, although they do get confused with a very brancy understory. They often miss smaller branches.If you look in the specifications of the particular UAV you will see they do not perform well with certain understories, so there is a chance of crashing. The same with telephone wires or other infrastructure that you have to be careful about. 

Also, it's good practice to always be able to see the drone, line-of-sight, which is actually a requirement for flight operations in many countries. Although you may be able to get around it by being in a tower or being in an open area. 

 Some studies have used AI classifiers and interesting frameworks to discuss full or partial detections, sometimes it is unknown if it is the animal of interest. I would carefully plan any fieldwork around the seasons and make sure to get any of your paperwork approved well before the months of the dry season. It's going to be your best chance to detect them. 

See full post
article

Introducing The Inventory!

Jake Burton

1 May 2024 12:46pm

The Inventory is your one-stop shop for conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects. Start contributing to it now!

9 15
Jake Burton

22 July 2024 10:55am

Hi @hjayanto ! I've given your account the ability to edit without earning the badge just to save time while we figure out why you aren't getting your Sprout Badge, so you should...
Herdhanu Jayanto

23 July 2024 2:05pm

Thank you @JakeBurton . Looks like I wasn't in community base group, instead misunderstood it was the same as thematic group. I have added our organization. Appreciate your help!
See full post