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
Zoological Society London (ZSL)
Technical Project Manager in ZSL's Conservation Technology Unit
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- 26 Discussions
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A Marine Conservationist based in Malaysia
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- 5 Groups
Early-career movement ecologist currently working with an interdisciplinary team to develop and deploy animal-borne tracking devices with the interest of monitoring and studying the fine-scale behaviors of large carnivores, particularly in the context of human wildlife conflict
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- 2 Discussions
- 10 Groups
- @jcbotsch
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I'm a population and community ecologist studying the effects of global change on insect populations.
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- 6 Groups
Natural Solutions
Engineer, Ph.D in Computation Ecology. Interested in developing tools for the massive acquisition of high dimensional data from new technologies (e.g., imaging, omics), their analysis and visualization.
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- 13 Groups
Researcher interested in the conservation of endemic anurans from arid High Andes. Focused on behavior, ecology, physiology, and reproduction studies. Education for conservation.
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- 7 Groups
- @Mathilde
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Natural Solutions
Engineer, I work for a web development company on web application projects for biodiversity conservation. I'm especially interested by camera traps, teledetection and DeepLearning subjects.
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- 11 Groups
PhD Candidate at University College London. Research and develop wireless sensor networks for biodiversity monitoring. Currently working on a software package for AI bioacoustics classifiers on edge device.
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- 2 Discussions
- 8 Groups
- @jmondragon
- | He/Him
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- 1 Discussions
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Firmware/Electronics Engineer with 10+ years of experience building telemetry devices for wildlife conservation. I'm an avid birdwatcher and enjoy wildlife photography. CTO and Senior Engineer at Cellular Tracking Technologies.
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- @kricherds
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Technology advisor for social change
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- 13 Groups
Article
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
The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup
Alex Rood
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
Funding
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
Article
Low-cost hydrophone - Invitation to tender
Xavier Mouy
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
Article
Read our interview with Clementine Uwamahoro, African Parks’ Country Manager in Conservation Technology overlooking technology operations for both Akagera National Park and Nyungwe National Park.
29 November 2023
Careers
The Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOPE) at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) seek to hire 1-2 scientists at any of the Assistant/Associate/Senior Scientist levels to develop research...
27 November 2023
Article
ICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
Craig Rackstraw
TagRanger® is a state-of-the-art wildlife finding, monitoring and tracking solution for research, conservation and environmental professionals. With superior configurability for logging data, reporting location and...
23 November 2023
Careers
Yale University & Map of Life Rapid Assessments - XPRIZE
8 November 2023
Careers
Data Scientist - Remote Sensing of Individual Trees
Alex Killion
Yale University & Map of Life Rapid Assessments - XPRIZE
8 November 2023
Careers
Yale University & Map of Life Rapid Assessments - XPRIZE
8 November 2023
Article
The new white paper from Rainforest Connection (RFCx) explores the power of ecoacoustics and AI to monitor biodiversity and track progress towards GBF targets using case studies from around the world.
20 September 2023
April 2024
event
Stephanie O'Donnell
June 2023
event
Hirari Sasaki
May 2023
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hi everyone, @craig joined last month's Variety Hour to chat about Tagranger, which you can read more about here. A TagRanger®... |
|
Biologging, Connectivity, Sensors | 1 day 18 hours ago | |
| 'Most importantly, we have to make it play a MIDI version of the DoctorWho theme song when you arm the device. That has to be the #1 feature if you ask me!' Seconded! |
+9
|
Acoustics, Biologging, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Sensors | 2 days 19 hours ago | |
| Sounds good. Just sent you a private message. |
|
Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Sensors | 4 days 16 hours ago | |
| This is so cool @Mauricio_Akmentins - congrats and look forward to seeing your project evolve! |
|
Acoustics, Biologging, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 week 4 days ago | |
| First things first, our team, @jcguerra10, @hefca, and myself, is thrilled to share with immense pride... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Data management and processing tools, Sensors | 2 weeks 5 days ago | |
| Hi @Henrikcox I hope you are well. I am not sure if you may remember myself and my colleague from CLS. We had a meeting and met in-person at Earthranger last year. ... |
+15
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors | 3 weeks ago | |
| Unless you are planning on making a mesh network between nodes then the total distance spanning the location of all the nodes is important to know, not just the intra node... |
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Sensors, Protected Area Management Tools | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
| Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Drones, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime | 2 months 2 weeks ago | |
| Real nice video. I'll have another look in the weekend in detail. |
+10
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Acoustics, Community Base, Protected Area Management Tools, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors | 2 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Fire detection is a sort of broad idea. Usually people detect the products of fire, and most often this is smoke.Many home fire detectors in the US use a radioactive source... |
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Community Base, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 2 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Thank you for sharing! Super interesting, as we don't see many underwater stereo cameras! We also use Blue Robotics components in our projects and have found them reliable and... |
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Sensors, Camera Traps, Marine Conservation | 3 months 3 weeks ago | |
| 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 | 3 months 3 weeks ago |
From Autonomous Cars to Aqualink: Developing a Reef Monitoring System
Drew Gray
9 June 2020 12:00am
Event: Arm’s AI Virtual Tech Sessions
Arm
9 June 2020 12:00am
Innovator Interview: Hack the Poacher
Hack the Poacher
4 June 2020 12:00am
Webinar: The Next Generation Of Animal Telemetry
BOEM
1 June 2020 12:00am
Competition: 2020 Hackaday Prize
Conservation X Labs
26 May 2020 12:00am
Grassroots Innovations for Wildlife Conservation
Aditya Gangadharan
19 May 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season One
WILDLABS Team
19 May 2020 12:00am
12th International Forum on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
Chatham House
14 May 2020 12:00am
sound loop devise
26 April 2020 1:29pm
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
Ellie Warren
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
CVPR
4 May 2020 12:00am
Mesh Powered Software Defined Radios
2 May 2020 7:13am
Call for Submissions – Arm Research Summit 2020
Arm
24 April 2020 12:00am
Talking Tracking with Xerius
Ellie Warren
23 April 2020 12:00am
#FieldKit50: Earth Day Giveaway
FieldKit
22 April 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Hub: WWF PandaSat
WILDLABS Team
13 April 2020 12:00am
Locally-Brewed Conservation Technology from a Small Town in North Bengal
Aditya Gangadharan
10 April 2020 12:00am
Connecting to MBARI's Deep-Sea Instruments
MBARI
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
Shah Selbe
24 March 2020 12:00am
Online Workshop: Conservation Technology
Hack the Poacher
23 March 2020 12:00am
Enter the Zooniverse: Try Citizen Science for Yourself!
Ellie Warren
18 March 2020 12:00am
Webinar: IIED Community-Based Approaches to Tackling Poaching and Illegal Wildlife Trade
IIED
17 March 2020 12:00am
Tutorial: Train a TinyML Model That Can Recognize Sounds Using Only 23 kB of RAM
Daniel Situnayake
16 March 2020 12:00am
Testing an Early Warning System to Mitigate Human-Wildlife Conflict on the Bhutan-India Border
Aditya Gangadharan
11 March 2020 12:00am
Proximity Data - Analysis methods
10 March 2020 2:44pm
3 Ways Your Conservation Technology Could Become a Shiny Pile of Junk, and How to Avoid It
Aditya Gangadharan
9 March 2020 12:00am
#Tech4Wildlife 2020 Photo Challenge In Review
WILDLABS Team
4 March 2020 12:00am
sound loop device
3 March 2020 1:59am
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.