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
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 11 Groups
Purdue University
- 8 Resources
- 48 Discussions
- 5 Groups
Neuroscientist & engineer transitioning to conservation tech. I have experience working with large imaging datasets, pose estimation and positional tracking, and machine learning. Looking to get involved with GIS, remote sensing, and AI for conservation.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 17 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 16 Groups
Tech 4 Conservation
President, Tech 4 Conservation
- 0 Resources
- 6 Discussions
- 18 Groups
Botswana Predator Conservation Trust
- 0 Resources
- 73 Discussions
- 10 Groups
- @donovantye
- | He/Him
Savanna Ecologist, Field Station Director and Head of Conservation Tech Projects for Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS).
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 14 Groups
Xerius Tracking
Concerned by wildlife protection and advanced technologies
- 0 Resources
- 4 Discussions
- 7 Groups
Wild Me
- 1 Resources
- 20 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Key Conservation
- 1 Resources
- 19 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Adventure Scientists is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Bozeman, MT that equips scientists and researchers with high-quality data collected from the outdoors that are crucial to addressing environmental challenges around the world.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 16 Groups
- @DanielHugelmann
- | He / Him
Hi, I'm the co-founder of OceanLabs Seychelles. We design and build environmental and marine remote sensing devices for conservation NGOs. As an engineer and avid diver, with a love for the environment, connecting conservation and technology was the natural thing to do!
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 12 Groups
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?
5 June 2024
Now accepting applications for two $15,000 grants to help protect wildlife through cutting-edge, technology-driven efforts
3 June 2024
Do you have photos and videos of your conservation tech work? We want to include them in a conservation technology showcase video
17 May 2024
Article
Read in detail about how to use The Inventory, our new living directory of conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects.
1 May 2024
Article
The Inventory is your one-stop shop for conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects. Start contributing to it now!
1 May 2024
Technology to End the Sixth Mass Extinction. Salary: $132 - $160k; Location: Seattle WA; 7+ years of experience in hardware product development and manufacturing; View post for full job description
1 May 2024
The Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to help us integrate movement data & camera trap data with global conservation policy.
22 April 2024
In a recent publication we tested Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring (UPAM) as a feasible non-invasive technique to study the calling behavior of therathened aquatic Andean frogs under natural conditions in the...
6 April 2024
Article
You’re invited to the WILDLABS Variety Hour, a monthly event that connects you to conservation tech's most exciting projects, research, and ideas. We can't wait to bring you a whole new season of speakers and...
22 March 2024
This funding opportunity is to support projects to enhance existing, high TRL (7-9) marine biogeochemical sensors and integrate with National Marine Equipment Pool’s autonomous underwater platforms. You must be based...
11 March 2024
The IQOE Task Team on Low-Cost Hydrophones for Research, Education, and Citizen Science is looking for industry partners to develop a low-cost hydrophone.
15 December 2023
Funding
With $60,000, $30,000, and $10,000 grants available for 14 outstanding projects, the support of engineering and technology talent from Arm (the leading semiconductor design company), and access to the world’s biggest...
1 December 2023
September 2023
event
June 2023
event
12 Products
Recently updated products
101 Products
1 R&D Projects
69 Organisations
Recently updated products
Recently updated R&D Projects
Recently updated organisations
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
---|---|---|---|---|
I am not suggesting that GoPro cameras do not have applications in conservation, but if you follow the link you posted you will find questions being asked that a conservation... |
|
Sensors | 7 years 7 months ago | |
Thanks for sharing this event, Jenny! Looks really interesting, hope to see you there. |
|
Sensors | 7 years 11 months ago | |
Hi John and Adam, I've been hearing a lot about Oxford Nanopore Technologies and MinION over the last few months, and while it sounds fanastic, it's been... |
|
Sensors | 7 years 11 months ago | |
Sensory: BBC Wildlife Director John Downer & the technology of 'spy-cam' filmmaking from Getty Images on Vimeo.Small Cameras, Big... |
|
Sensors | 8 years ago | |
Hello all, I've been reading a lot about advancements in using thermal imaging technology for wildlife monitoring. I know... |
|
Sensors | 8 years 1 month ago | |
Latest news about this project was picked up by the BBC world service for a short interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03nwl8g You can also read more here: http://... |
|
Sensors | 8 years 2 months ago | |
Hi everyone, I'm working on a citizen science project forcused on using aquaculture for conservation and ecological... |
|
Sensors | 8 years 2 months ago | |
That's great Jason. I think your approach can be very successful. I'm a little bit familiar with Wild Book through my contacts at IBEIS, who I believe you... |
|
Sensors | 8 years 2 months ago | |
I was amused to read about a flock of pigeons just released in London to tackle pollution. The flock was equipped with pollution... |
|
Sensors | 8 years 2 months ago |
How do I build bespoke conservation technology?
20 July 2020 12:00am
Training Opportunity: Durrell Conservation Academy
16 July 2020 12:00am
How do I repair my camera traps?
13 July 2020 12:00am
Kākāpō Dreaming: A Wildlife Drones Adventure
8 July 2020 12:00am
Era of the Condor: A Species' Future in Recovery (Part 3)
2 July 2020 12:00am
Era of the Condor: A Species' Future in Recovery (Part 2)
25 June 2020 12:00am
Seeking research projects related to monitoring wildlife behavior
20 June 2020 3:34pm
23 June 2020 1:56am
I'd love to chat more! I'll be reaching out soon!
From Autonomous Cars to Aqualink: Developing a Reef Monitoring System
9 June 2020 12:00am
Event: Arm’s AI Virtual Tech Sessions
9 June 2020 12:00am
Innovator Interview: Hack the Poacher
4 June 2020 12:00am
Webinar: The Next Generation Of Animal Telemetry
1 June 2020 12:00am
Competition: 2020 Hackaday Prize
26 May 2020 12:00am
Grassroots Innovations for Wildlife Conservation
19 May 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season One
19 May 2020 12:00am
12th International Forum on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
14 May 2020 12:00am
sound loop devise
26 April 2020 1:29pm
12 May 2020 4:07pm
I reckon if you could get down to a power consumption of 2-3Ah per day like our system had then a battery of 20Ah is suitable for a week and you wouldn't need inverters and solar panels etc. I agree that in your environment everything will struggle with being powered for 24hrs. I rarely have that problem to contend with! Will have a look at a temperature test of our design over the Summer and will share the details in a blog if it looks like it will prove a solution for all environments.
12 May 2020 7:14pm
Hi Eric, I think you could do away with an inverter, and instead use something like a DC-DC step-down (sometimes called a 'buck') converter. The solar and battery system is 12VDC correct? Chances are that the MP3 player wall charger is pumping out something like 5VDC (it should be written on the side of the plug)? Something like this would work: https://www.altronics.com.au/p/z6338-dc-dc-converter-module-3.5-35v-input-5-56v-output/
or if it is a 12V battery as I suspect, virtually any 'car' charger for a phone would do (just as I suspect the powerbank will). Hopefully, a large capacity powerbank is enough anyway, and you don't even need solar...
13 May 2020 12:39pm
Yes im hoping the power bank and a few extra mp3s will get it done this year. will look into a better system this winter now that I have some help:)
Era of the Condor: A Species' Future in Recovery
5 May 2020 12:00am
Notification systems for trap activation
10 January 2019 5:30am
4 May 2020 2:05am
Hi Rahid,
Thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions:
#1
There would be no external power (or cell phone reception) available at any of the node? The nodes would need to be completely autonomous.
#2
Total number of nodes would likley be in the range of 100–200 within a project area.
#3
The maximum distance between two nodes would likely be 5 km.
#4
All i want to transmit is an alert to say whether a trap has been activated or not. No video is required.
Many thanks,
Andrew
4 May 2020 3:00am
Ok, we can customize a solution for you, but probably won't be able to get this out to you for around 3-4 months.
RF and mesh is our domain. We can guarantee NLOS at well over 20 km+.
5KM in not a large distance. Not sure if LoRa can handle 200 nodes or work in the bush --- trees are the enemy of anything above 300 MHz.
I'm all for using HF (below 30MHz) or tactical VHF (30-108 MHz).
Would 1-1.6m antennas work?
---
I can email you a case study for a much more complex project that we did last December .
We were able to transmit video using 100KHz of bandwidth over a frequency of 30.5 MHz. Our moving car was traveling at 130 km/h and achieved a 64km+ distance from the base station --- we used 50% less bandwidth to transmit video than what an FM radio station uses to transmit tunes and other meta data. Our glass to glass (camera lense to monitor) latency was 24ms.
---
Our solutions don't require an expensive sattelite link or any phone network to work (although we can add those options).
What this means is that our radios will always work, come rain, come snow, et al. --- Satellite links are easily disrupted by a low cast / clouds , etc.
Our signals reflect and refract of the ground and the ionosphere to give you NLOS in any condition.
So a sensor based project of 200 nodes is no problem at all.
---
If waiting 3-4 months is not a big deal, then we can donate a few units to your project once we learn more about it.
---
4 May 2020 5:01am
Please see my edits above
Competition: iWildCam 2020
4 May 2020 12:00am
Mesh Powered Software Defined Radios
2 May 2020 7:13am
Call for Submissions – Arm Research Summit 2020
24 April 2020 12:00am
Talking Tracking with Xerius
23 April 2020 12:00am
#FieldKit50: Earth Day Giveaway
22 April 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Hub: WWF PandaSat
13 April 2020 12:00am
Locally-Brewed Conservation Technology from a Small Town in North Bengal
10 April 2020 12:00am
Connecting to MBARI's Deep-Sea Instruments
31 March 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Community Call Recording: Rainforest X-PRIZE
30 March 2020 12:00am
Virtual Field Trip: Conservation Technology with Shah Selbe
24 March 2020 12:00am
Online Workshop: Conservation Technology
23 March 2020 12:00am
Enter the Zooniverse: Try Citizen Science for Yourself!
18 March 2020 12:00am
22 June 2020 8:54pm
Hi Ben!
I think we've had correspondence on Twitter in the past, but can't remember for sure... Anyways, I'm a primatology PhD student and do fieldwork in Madagascar studying lemurs (specifically Ranomafana National Park). My dissertation is on lemur vocal communication, but I am doing an applied chapter focused on passive acoustic monitoring as well. I've tested out a bunch of different PAM devices (ARU's-autonomous recording units) e.g., SongMeter, Swift, AudioMoth and am currently annotating call files and prepping a training dataset that I hope to begin using with an ML model to identify species-specific calls. Vocals are a great use-case with behavior and tech as you can sometimes ID contexts, individuals, etc based on acoustic structure or usage which would be really cool (albeit very complicated) to incorporate.
Also have some experience with camera-traps, and the area I work in in Mada is part of the TEAM network so I'm hoping to incorporate camera-traps and ARUs in the same area. I work with local researchers and students (via the Malagasy-run Centre ValBio research station) and am looking to develop community-led initiatives as well so I've got the low-cost, open-source interest as well.
I'll stop typing an essay now, but definitely would love to chat!! Feel free to message me on Twitter or email me ([email protected]).