Sensors already equip a range of tools to enhance monitoring capacity for conservation. Some of the higher bandwidth technologies, like camera traps and acoustic monitoring systems, have been essential elements of the conservation toolkit for decades, and thus have enough users that we've created dedicated WILDLABS groups to address them. But a whole range of lower bandwidth sensors beyond these core technologies are being increasingly integrated into conservation monitoring systems, and offer rich new insights into the wildlife and ecosystems we're all working to protect. As with many technologies, cost and access have historically been challenges to the adoption of new sensors, but with low-cost and open-source solutions on the rise, we're excited to see what the future of this space holds.
Getting Started with Sensors:
- Watch Shah Selbe's Tech Tutors episode on scaling FieldKit, an open-source conservation sensor toolbox, from a project to a successful conservation tech product.
- Check out our Virtual Meetup about Low-Cost, Open-Source Solutions in conservation tech, including a talk by Alasdair Davies on the Arribada Initiative's work with thermal sensors in early warning systems.
- For a more in-depth introduction, watch the first video in our datalogger mini-series: Freaklabs: How do I get started with Arduino?
In this group, you'll meet others who are using and innovating diverse sensors in their work, discuss ways to make sensors more effective & accessible for conservationists, learn about what sensors are already helping us accomplish in the field, and have the opportunity to ask and answer questions. Join this group to get started!
Header image: Emma Vogel, University of Tromsø
Over 35 years of experience in biodiversity conservation worldwide, largely focused on forests, rewilding and conservation technology. I run my own business assisting nonprofits and agencies in the conservation community
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- @Jeffm
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Environmentalist and Python developer working in the realm of Remote Sensing. Fascinated by the intersection of technology and nature, with a focus on machine learning, ecological modeling, and biodiversity monitoring. 🌍
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Systems Engineer at Edge Impulse, experiencce with hands-on edge machine learning for wildlife conservation
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- @bumbleben
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Junior dev in a bioacoustics startup, interested in all forms of remote sensing and biologging
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- @Fatuma
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I aim to transition my career towards conservation technology after gaining two years of experience in the tech industry.
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Jack of all trades and master of none
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- @Thomas_Luypaert
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Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
Ecological monitoring enthusiast with a focus on ecological and conservation research
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Technologist and Visual storyteller focusing on social, conservations issues.
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Incoming student of UCL MSc Ecology and Data Science
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The Nature Conservancy
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Studio Pixel
AI integration architect, AI product manager. I've built the front-end of this website 😁
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Article
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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I am working on a prototype to detect and alert for temic & karbadust. They are used for the poisoning of waterholes in South Africa.... |
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Sensors | 5 months 1 week ago | |
Will you accept personal/hobbyist focused on conservation on their small plots of land (10-100 acres)?I would, and know others, who would happily pay more than the official... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi,This is a really late answer but I was new to wildlabs then. I have a security appliance that uses state of the AI models and user defined polygon areas of interest that... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Camera Traps, Sensors | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
Featuring some of the very best spider video you'll ever see.. @JayStafstrom has been pushing the boundaries of camera technology,... |
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Camera Traps, Sensors | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
I always thought a tracker that attached like a slap bracelet would be sweet. |
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Emerging Tech, Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), Sensors | 5 months 4 weeks ago | |
I came across this which looks like it might work for you.Others have mentioned Davis. I used the Davis vantage pro2 in a previous life, and the cabled version was about... |
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Sensors | 6 months ago | |
My suggestion would probably be a 3D printer and Solder Station with a stock of common components. With those two things you can solve most problems. |
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Community Base, Emerging Tech, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 6 months 1 week ago | |
Hello Sam,What would you say would be the estimate cost was for the first version Instant Detect 1.0 ? That might help my research ? |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors | 6 months 2 weeks ago | |
Cheers @Lars_Holst_Hansen , yes, the antenna foam spacer idea certainly helped us a bit. I completely agree though that ruggedness, especially on a polar bear (a bit different... |
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Biologging, Sensors | 7 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi everyone, I wanted to provide an update on behalf of Wildlife Acoustics regarding some of these comments in this thread. As some of you may know, we have just announced... |
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Acoustics, Sensors | 8 months ago | |
This was one of my all time favourite Variety Hour talks! @wschan gave us an awesome walk through the open-source low cost acceleratometer... |
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Biologging, Open Source Solutions, Sensors | 8 months ago | |
Makes sense if you have the cash... |
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Biologging, Climate Change, Sensors, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Emerging Tech | 8 months 2 weeks ago |
Making the Most of Tech Tutors Season 2!
30 November 2020 12:00am
Kaggle Competition: Species Audio Detection
24 November 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season Two
24 November 2020 12:00am
Conservation Technology User Guidelines Issue 5: Drones
18 November 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS: Building a Better World with ‘Bad’ Data
17 November 2020 12:00am
Water intermittency data logger
10 December 2018 4:23pm
21 January 2019 3:21pm
Hi @j.neff! These are great tips. I am floored by the generosity of this community, thank you! My progress on this project has been slightly stalled - but I just received the components to solder together the RTC that @Alasdair recommended. Hopefully I can get back onto that train soon, as summer is rapidly approaching!
Thanks for sending these other components and ideas, I will update this thread as soon as a beta version of this device is complete!
All the best,
Erick
13 November 2020 7:18am
Really interesting chat.
I was looking at this "eTape" to measure inundation on marine turtle nests.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/463
Will give you water presence and level if you are interested in more than just presence-absence.
The water level reading seems to be continue, but I guess it can be logged or powered only at requested intervals.
Good luck
Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks
10 November 2020 12:00am
Tree Canopy Tools workshop
29 October 2020 5:10pm
RSEC Journal: Ecoacoustics and Biodiversity Monitoring
28 October 2020 12:00am
Leg band-style tags...but for mammals
16 October 2020 4:06am
26 October 2020 2:23pm
Hi Rob,
I can't think of any examples of this with primates, mostly because they'd probably figure out how to get them off or mess with them. Using collars at least limits the biting possibilities but still, they're dang smart! It would be hard I think to ruggedize it enough to deal with all that but then still have it be light-weight and non-bothersome enough to ethically use it (particularly with smaller mammals). Just some thoughts on the practicality aspect for primates; can't speak to other mammals but seems like this would be a similar issues for carnivore species.
-Carly
27 October 2020 2:01pm
Hello Rob,
I have seen the bracelet style used on large mammals with mixed success and failure. The main considerations are terrain the animal uses, and fitting the bracelet properly. Both affect the 1. durability of the tag and 2. whether it cuts into the skin. In the case of fitting to the leg, tighter is better to minimise rubbing and cutting in, but it will depend on the species you are thinking to tag. Would be great to hear how the development goes for small-medium size mammals.
Best,
Michelle
Tiny, Cheap, Modular Ant Sensor Development
3 August 2020 10:18pm
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.
10 August 2020 3:37pm
here's an example of an early artistic prototype
https://youtu.be/W1TdSzt3ZbM
16 October 2020 4:05am
Amazing stuff Andrew! The dips in light idea made me think of exoplanet hunting straight away! Such a cool idea!!
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#Tech4Wildlife News: Airdropping Sensors from Moths
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Meet the Scientists of Black Mammalogists Week!
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Tech Tutors: Creating Custom Hardware with Arduino
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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
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
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
Tech Tutors: How do I build bespoke conservation technology?
29 July 2020 9:06pm
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
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
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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24 August 2020 12:00am
Laure Joanny Reviews: Tech Tutors' How Do I Repair My Camera Traps?
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Tech Tutors Recording: How do I get started with Arduino?
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fishing Vessels of the Future
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How do I use portable genomics in the field?
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OpenCollar Update 2
7 May 2019 12:49pm
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
28 August 2019 11:18am
Hey Laurens,
How did your field tests in Rwanda go?
Steph
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!
How do I use a drone to capture radio-tracking data?
27 July 2020 12:00am
New article: Bridge et al. 2019 An Arduino-Based RFID Platform for Animal Research
17 July 2019 2:13pm
18 July 2019 2:33am
@TedHowardNZ is this something you could use?
18 July 2019 4:40am
Looks interesting.
Will explore more deeply when I have some more time.
Thanks very much
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
Interest in group order of ETag RFID readers
5 December 2019 8:05pm
23 July 2020 11:13am
Hi all,
Some ETAG rfid-readers are now avaible at https://www.labmaker.org/collections/earth-and-ecology/products/etag. The price is high, though: USD139.
Yvan
18 January 2019 7:21pm
Hello Erick
A few comments that you may find useful.
Before I start, I am not a complete Arduino beginner but I am certainly no expert either.
I quote British suppliers' websites below but you should find some local to you that offer the same components. If in doubt you can always try Mouser or Digikey (though mind the delivery charges for low value orders).
ARDUINO
1. SIZE - If you want to keep things small and do without a lot of the connectors etc. that come with the "standard" Arduino UNO then have a look at the ARDUINO PRO MINI. A postage stamp size unit with plenty of digital and analogue input/output as well as onboard voltage regulator to give you some flexibility on power supply.
Having said that, you already found out that by default Arduinos are not that energy efficient. But there is help at hand if you don' t mind getting a little more immersed in the electronics. See here for a very useful and detailed tutorial that worked a treat for one of my projects:
http://www.home-automation-community.com/arduino-low-power-how-to-run-atmega328p-for-a-year-on-coin-cell-battery/
2. OPERATING VOLTAGE AND CPU SPEED - There are Arduino Pro Mini versions operating at 3.3 or 5V, 8 or 16 MHz. Unless you need lots of processing power (unlikely from your description), then the 8 MHz version will do perfectly well. Pick the voltage version depending on the peripherals you are going to use. There are usually, but not always, 3.3 and 5V versions. SD card readers, for example, operate at 3.3V and those suited for a 5V Arduino have onboard level shifters to convert voltage levels.
http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/index.php?route=product/search&keyword=arduino%20pro%20mini
3. SAVING ENERGY - I guess you don't need continuous measurements but just, say, once an hour. In so far, you could use slightly more energy-intensive measurement devices as they (and the Arduino) will only ever run for a few seconds at a time. On that note, you should be able to power all or at least some of the peripherals off output pins of the Arduino. They only supply a few 10mA but this is enough in most cases. Use two outpins per device, one set to LOW (for 0V) and one set to HIGH (for 3.3 or 5 V). Larger devices would have to be switched on and off through a transistor or even relay that is controlled by the Arduino.
REAL TIME CLOCK
Beware of some of the cheaper RTCs. I found to my detriment that, e.g. DS1302, does not keep time well at all to the point of being entirely useless. Better spend a few bob more and get something like the DS3234, which worked fine for me.
http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/rtc-ds3234?keyword=rtc
MEASURING WATER FLOWS
If at all possible, measure contactless. As soon as you get your sensor anywhere near the actual stream, you are exposing it to all manner of potential trouble including debris getting washed onto it, clogging any mechanical sensor and possible upsetting most other "direct contact" sensors. Having said that, there don't seem to be all that many off-the-shelf options so here are some ideas off the top of my head.
Digikey sells the same sensors previously suggested from Adafruit but they also have a range of other "immersible" sensors that are lot cheaper:
https://www.digikey.com/products/en/sensors-transducers/optical-sensors-photointerrupters-slot-type-transistor-output/548?k=optical%20liquid%20sensor
A waterproof capacitive sensors may be an option but this would have to be helddown or burried on the stream bed:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-5-24V-Contactless-Liquid-Level-Sensor-Switch-Non-Contact-Waterproof-Detector-/122834485435
An entirely different approach but definitely non-contact: use a small camera module and machine vision to detect the change of state between dry and wet. To do the processing of this on an Arduino would likely be a challenge, then again, what you are looking for is quite a simple change in visual appearance that may be possible to detect without too much processing.
POWER SUPPLY
If you are operating in the desert then I expect a small solar panel with battery should provide you all the power you need for such a small unit. I can't give you much more details on something custom-made but if you want to keep things simple then use an off-the-shelf device with a USB-style connector (get the 5V Arduino in this case). Better yet, use something that has something more robust than a USB port. If all else fails, use something like Sugru to beef-up the USB socket and plug against accidental damage and disconnection.
https://sugru.com/
Good luck and do have fun !!
J