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Want to talk about sensors that don't quite fit into any of our tech-specific groups? This is the place to post! From temperature and humidity to airflow and pressure sensors, there are many environmental sensing tools that can add valuable data to core conservation monitoring technologies. With the increasing availability of low-cost, open-source options, we've seen growing interest in integrating these kinds of low bandwidth sensors into existing tools. What kinds of sensors are you working with?

event

Event: 2021 Open Hardware Summit

Akiba
Join Akiba and Jacinta from WILDLABS' Build Your Own Data Logger course at the virtual 2021 Open Hardware Summit on April 9th!  In their presentation, Akiba and Jacinta will discuss how sharing community knowledge can...

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discussion

Arm technologies: What do you use?

Hi Wildlabbers, We'd like to learn a bit more about how all of you in this community are using tech built with Arm technology! Let us know what project you're...

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Hi Ellie. 

This isn't necessarily wildlife but Jacinta and I used the CC1310 wireless chip with the ARM Cortex M3 inside for  a project with the International Rice Research Institute. It was to test precision irrigation on rice crops for dry planting and to remove the need for the traditional flood based planting systems. This allows rice to grow in arid regions that traditionally can't support rice as a staple crop. Water scarcity is also a worry for the institute due to global warming, hence focusing on growing rice in low-water environments. There's more information on it here
For those interested, the CC1310 uses 900 MHz and supports the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It's one of the standard chips used in the SigFox protocol, although we mainly just used it for communications and not for SigFox implementation. We also implemented a gateway device that collected data from the networked rice paddies and sent water level data to the government server via GSM using SMS. We typically use HTTP but in the Philippines, cellular internet isn't as reliable as SMS, especially in rural areas. Both boards are based on the ARM Cortex M3.

I've attached pics of the wireless sensor boards and gateway we developed for this project as well.

Akiba

I've been tinkering with NVidia Jetson boards for about 2 years now. This is basically a small ARM computer, comes with an Ubuntu image but could run any linux I think. It's basically a mini computer with an Nvidia GPU, so you can do all sorts of things at 'the edge'.

I have been (on and off) building a bird feeder camera that would id birds and send just the text not images. Ultimately I would like to build a smart camera trap that would id animals and conserve bandwith by just uploading the data.

I started with the Jetson Nano, about 100 USD but when I started it was difficult to do things due to ARM. 

Now I am working with a Jetson NX, about 500 USD and things are way easier. Visual Studio Code runs there natively, as do many python libraries and there are even a lot of containers ready made now.

Also, AWS has Graviton instances now - an EC2 ARM computer. One of my plans is to use AWS for building, testing, etc. and now ARM is an option there too.

 

Hi Barry,

I am tinkering with similar edge devices and aspirations! I recently acquired the Jetson Nano to start testing some aspects of the BearID Project software pipeline. What were the main issues with the Nano? Is it mainly the build process (speed and memory)? The NX uses very similar CPU cores (but 6 instead of 4), bigger/faster DRAM (8GB vs 4GB) and much faster GPU (especially if you are using INT8 instead of FLOAT32). I'm also playing around with Raspberry Pi and a hardware accelerator.

The Arm-based EC2 instances on AWS should be a great help in compilation!

Full disclosure: I work for Arm, but developing on these platforms is not part of my role there. This is purely a passion project!

Ed

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funding

Funding Opportunity: COVID-19 Science Fund

National Geographic
National Geographic is offering funding up to up to $50,000 for conservationists conducting research on how the pandemic has impacted wildlife and conservation work.  If you are interested in researching aspects of the...

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discussion

Method for mapping & finding nest boxes

The National Dormouse Monitoring Programme (NDMP) involves siting a minimum of 50 wooden nest boxes in a grid throughout a woodland site. At out site we have 600 boxes and...

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Hi Lars, Nida,

Riffing on the Recco idea, if you have access to the detector, it's possible to make a Recco-compatible reflector for very cheap, since for this purpose it won't need to be sewn into clothing or put through a washing machine.  There is no magic behind the reflector technology, I think it can be made in small quantities for USD1-2/each.  It is basically RFID technology, and you know how cheap they're trying to be.  Here is a paper talking about just that.  Especially take a look at their reference [4], which details an attempt at making Recco-compatible reflectors, but using older components (the paper was published in 1997).  There are much better components now.

I bet Recco detectors are expensive.  But there's a way around that!  434MHz transmitters and 868MHz receivers are easy to get; together, these constitute the detector.  Another possibility is 13.56MHz/27.2MHz.  Not sure about the detection range though.

Thanks,

-harold

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Virtual Event: FieldKit Open House

FieldKit
Join the Fieldkit team on Thursday, April 1st at 6 PM for a virtual open house for field scientists, ecologists, conservationists, and anyone interested in the possibilities of open sensing! This event will include a...

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Collaboration Spotlight: BoomBox

Ellie Warren
Today we're celebrating the #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge by shining a spotlight on one of our favorite WILDLABS collaboration success stories: the BoomBox! This collaboration between Dr. Meredith Palmer, Jacinta ...

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WWF: Protecting Ferrets with Drones and Vaccines

Kristy Bly
How can drones and ATVs protect black-footed ferrets from the plague? In this case study from WWF's Northern Great Plains Program, Black-footed Ferret Restoration Manager Kristy Bly discusses how delivering vaccines to...

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News: FieldKit Presales and WSJ Feature

FieldKit
Our friends at FieldKit are excited to announce the official launch of the FieldKit! These open source environmental sensing hardware modules are now available for pre-sale in the FieldKit store. You can also read about...

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Protecting Wildlife with Machine Learning

Hack the Poacher
Last year, Tim van Deursen and Thijs Suijten shared their new "Hack the Poacher" system with us, presenting a unique way to detect poachers in real-time within protected national parks. Read on to learn about their next...

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Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fish Catch Monitoring

Daniel Steadman
As we launch our new Sustainable Fishing Challenges group in the WILDLABS community, we are excited to welcome Daniel Steadman, the group manager, to give us an overview of three major areas in which #tech4wildlife...

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Making the Most of Tech Tutors Season 2!

WILDLABS Team
WILDLABS is celebrating its five year anniversary! Throughout the rest of 2020, we'll be sharing articles, community features, and case studies showcasing the incredible projects, collaborations, and successes that this...

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WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season Two

WILDLABS Team
The WILDLABS Tech Tutors are back! Starting this December, join us for our second season and get even more answers to your biggest "how do I do that?" questions of conservation tech. Whether you're a #tech4wildlife...

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funding

Kaggle Competition: Species Audio Detection

Rainforest Connection
Hey Acoustic Monitoring and AI for Conservation community members - don't miss Rainforest Connection's Species Auto Detection Kaggle competition, open for to competitors and teams now! Participants will have the chance...

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Conservation Technology User Guidelines Issue 5: Drones

World Wildlife Fund
The latest issue of WWF's Conservation Technology Series is about drones and is designed for a broad audience of conservationists. Containing ten case studies, scientific literature, and handy information on getting...

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discussion

Water intermittency data logger

Hello, I am trying to find a simple cheap data logger that can record simply the presence or absence of water for stream intermittency surveys. The best resource I've...

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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

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

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

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Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks

The Conservation Project International
Do you have innovative #tech4wildlife ideas that could save one of the most endangered species on earth from extinction? Apply now to join Vaquita Hack, a hackathon for students and early career conservationists!  This...

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discussion

Tree Canopy Tools workshop

Have you ever wanted to get a sample from the top of a tree, without having to climb it or shoot it out with a shotgun?  Would it be cool to place a sensor or trap...

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article

RSEC Journal: Ecoacoustics and Biodiversity Monitoring

Remote Sensing in Ecology & Conservation
The Acoustic Monitoring community is one of the most active spaces on WILDLABS, and this particular aspect of conservation technology is rapidly growing, offering new ways to answer large-scale environmental questions...

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discussion

Leg band-style tags...but for mammals

Hi all my fellow WILDLABradors, a quick post to ask if anyone has ever tried to use leg bands or a similar 'bracelet' style of tracking/sensor attachment method with...

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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

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

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discussion

Tiny, Cheap, Modular Ant Sensor Development

Hi! Been working on this project for a decade in various forms on and off, but essentially, I want very small cheap sensors that we can place all over a tree and monitor the...

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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.

 

here's an example of an early artistic prototype

https://youtu.be/W1TdSzt3ZbM

 

 

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article

Opportunity: Sustainable Development Goals Internship

UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre seeks an intern to contribute to the mapping of nature’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals. This position will have the opportunity to work...

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#Tech4Wildlife News: Airdropping Sensors from Moths

University of Washington
The miniaturisation of technology is rapidly opening up new possibilities for conservationists and environmental scientists in need of less invasive, easy to deploy solutions. University of Washington researchers have...

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Meet the Scientists of Black Mammalogists Week!

Black Mammalogists Week
To celebrate the first Black Mammalogists Week (starting Sunday, September 13th), we talked to four of the amazing Black scientists behind this event! Find out what they had to say about their favorite (and most...

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