Group

Software and Mobile Apps / Feed

The software and apps used and built by the conservation tech community are as varied as the species and habitats we work to protect. From fighting wildlife crime to collecting and analyzing data to engaging the general public with unique storytelling, apps, software, and mobile games are playing an increasingly large role in our work. Whether you're already well-versed in the world of software, or you're a hardware expert looking for guidance from the other side of the conservation tech field, this group will have interesting discussions, resources, and ideas to offer.

discussion

Researching most affordable GPS chips with sensor capability

Hello! I'm conducting extensive research trying to find the most affordable GPS chip on the market now, capable of also having a sensor chip that senses and measures body temp...

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Hello Malou

I hazard the guess that what you are looking for is already available for livestock monitoring, so I would look in that direction unless you want to re-invent that wheel. I admit I am not 100% sure what is out there as I am working on something unrelated. Homemade tags may be cheaper but don't underestimate the effort and experience required to make something reliable and robust.

Reliably monitoring body temperature and heart rate may also be more difficult than you expect. I looked into this some time ago for birds such as golden eagles and discovered that the most reliable option required attaching a sensor onto the skin. I then decided that I would have to do without this and moved on. I am in no way an expert on this and others may know much better so don't give up quite yet. Again, there may be ready-made solutions in the livestock tracking market that do these types of measurements already.

Anyway, I can offer you a few details on GPS components I have come across that may be of interest. Please note that although these components are on my tracker prototype, this is still under development and I cannot yet say how well they perform. But their technical details looked good enough to give them a try for my project.

 

GPS MODULE: uBlox EVA-M8M
- certainly not the cheapest, GBP 10 bought in single units, cheaper in bulk;
- stores GPS satellites' almanac and ephemeris data onboard and can interpolate future trajectories. This means that the module has to be switched on only once in 48 h to get all the satellite data (typically takes 45 s) and then fire up only for a few seconds to get a position fix. The key benefit of this is energy conservation, which on most tags is important.
Data sheet: https://www.u-blox.com/sites/default/files/EVA-M8-FW3_DataSheet_(UBX-16014189).pdf
Source: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/u-blox-america-inc/EVA-M8M-1/672-1112-1-ND/9818030

 

GPS ANTENNA: ProAnt PRO-OB-430, GBP1.00
A very small and lightweight GPS antenna, much more so than the usual ceramic patch antennas. If weight and size are an issue then this may come in handy.
data sheet: http://www.proant.se/files/user/Application%20note%20-%20OnBoard%20SMD%20GNSS%20rev%202.0.pdf
Source: https://www.digikey.co.uk/products/en?keywords=1532-1000-1-ND

 

A hint for more inspiration and sources of useful information on lightweight and energy-efficient electronics: websites on remote controlled model aircraft and amateur weather balloons.

It would be useful if you could post here a summary of your results on the GPS module search, once complete, for the benefit of those looking for the same details in the future.

Good luck !

J

Hello! Thank so much for responding to this. I appreciate it very much. 

I would agree with you- at this point we're researching the different wildlife/livestock tracking systems and hoping to reverse engineer a few close options. Our price point has to be substantially lower than what is currently on the market or being manufacured in order for livestock producers to even consider this possibility. I do have a software engineer in Seattle who has created something similar, but again not just what we need. 

I too learned that body temp and heart rate will be hard to get and probably pricey. For the work we need this system for, I think we could get away with just body temp at this point but in the future would need both because we're trying to pinpoint the exact or near exact time livestock are being preyed upon by large carnivores, so the heart rate is the stress response to all of that. 

Thank you for this wonderful info on GPS. I'll dive further into what you sent me after I'm finished creating a presentation I have at a Living with Wildlife conference. And yes- I'll plan on keeping this group up to date on anything we're able to gather together/create, etc. I definietly don't have the time to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, so if you come acorss anything else in your endeavors, pleasde do reach out. I'll do the same.

 

Thanks again! MUCH appreciated!

Best,

Malou

https://github.com/LoRaTracker/GPSTutorial/tree/master/GPS%20performance%20comparisons

I'm a bit late to this conversation, but in case anyone else is searching "gps" that link above is one of the best "gsp shoot outs" I've come across.

HTH

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discussion

Creating a wifi hotspot in a remote site

Can anyone offer advice on setting up a wifi hotpot for a team based on a very remote, flat, treeless island? I'm looking at a few options, including the following link, but...

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Thanks1 The Moja system looks fantastic. I've neevr heard of anything similar in the Caribbean.

 

Hi Jenny,

Trust you're well. Were you successful in getting something for your team?

Hi Jenny,

Interesting problem.

I don't have direct experience, but it looks like there are some experts you can probably reach out to and ask... if you haven't already:

http://www.groundcontrol.com/Caribbean_Satellite_Internet.htm

http://www.globaltt.com/en/internet_satellite/Caribbean.html

Also I found an interesting discussion on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/72wrio/satellite_internet_in_the_caribbean/

Best of luck!

Ivan

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article

Canopy height mapping with drones

Tom Swinfield
Tom Swinfield and colleagues at the Forest Ecology and Conservation Group have assessed the quality of three dimensional forest models produced from drone surveys, and conclude that concerns about their quality for...

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funding

FLIR Conservation Discount Program

FLIR Systems, Inc.
FLIR announces the launch of their Conservation Discount Program, which offers projects the opportunity to qualify for a 30% discount on select thermal, visible, and maritime products. Share your conservation plan and...

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article

Meet the WILDLABS TECH HUB Winners

WILDLABS Team
In February, we released an open call for the WILDLABS TECH HUB, offering 3 months of support for solutions using technolgy to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. We were overwhelmed by an incredible 37 submissions,...

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discussion

SocialCoder.org

I have felt that something like SocialCoder.org is long, long overdue. There are scores of programmers and other tech people who are looking for interesting projects to do ...

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HI Robert, 

I have so many thoughts about this topic.. will try to keep them brief! It's definitely a discussion topic I'd like to throw around in the virtual meetup we have coming up in May that's going to be about Tools and Spaces for Collaboration. 

I haven't seen this programme specifically, but I'm aware of others that have similar goals. I (and a lot of others) agree - better/clearer pathways for connecting tech people with conservation needs is something long overdue for conservation tech. It's a need we've had our eye on since launching WILDLABS. 

We're seeing it happen organically/opportunisitcally here in WILDLABS already (sometimes exactly the way you've mentioned - people posting in forums, other times it's happening behind the scenes with our community team making the connections). But I think we've reached a maturity/stability level in the community where we can now think about how to do it more strategically. 

In our 2019 survey (still a few days left to get your thoughts in - access it here), the priority we're hearing from respondants is for tools that make it easier to either find projects to get involved in, or to find people/skills who can answer needs - tools for collaboration. I've included the current responses to this question below. At the top of the list is an 'I need help portal' - I envisage this as a sort of Task Rabbit for conservation. This could be one way of delivering this matchmaking service at scale and giving tech people (early career or not) an easier way to find projects that need there specific skill set. 

I think there's also a need for a more bespoke approach, that like a mentoring/hand-picked matching process. Inevitably this is way heavier on the staff capacity requirements but may have a greater impact.It feels like this might be closer to the social coder approach. The SCB Conservation Tech Working Group is working on developing a path for how we can engaging individual tech experts and connect them with projects/challenges that could use their expertise (we'll share more on this as it evolves), and the WILDLABS Tech Hub is developing this sort of approach at a company level, engaging whole teams from tech companies strategically based on specific projects needs. 

One final thought - when we're talking about these sort of initaitves, I think it's important to keep in mind that while there's a clear benefit for getting tech people involved in addressing conservation needs, there is also a cost/risk especially if there isn't alignment between the skills on offer and an actual need. It can take significant staff time to manage these projects or even just articulate the challenge properly, if there isn't a plan for sustaining the solution then conservationists are left with something that ends up draining resources/not delivering, and we also run the risk of fatigue with tech projects not working out or field teams not wanting to be test subjects and just wanting things that work. These challenges are not a reason avoid this work, but they are things to keep in mind. 

Anway, interested to hear your thoughts or anyone elses? Are others thinking in this space? Does what i've said resonate?  

Steph

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discussion

we seek Beta-testers for our new platform for wildlife intelligence

Sensing Clues Foundation is introducing an innovative Platform for Wildlife Intelligence, enabling rangers to create timely and actionable information for wildlife protection...

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Excellent, that good to hear.

No, I didn't have anyone in particular in mind, it's just helpful to have that info in the back of my mind as I talk to different people/projects. I was also wondering whether to include the invite in our next Digest which will be coming out tomorrow, and based on this response I'll pop it in there :) 

Congratulations! This looks like great tech.

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discussion

Call for ideas & feedback

Hi forum, I am writing to ask the group what are the most pressing challenges they have that could potentially be solved by technology. I am a technologist, but also have...

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It certainly is. Whatever gets the job done and makes it easier for us to find the animals and prosecute the poachers. Also interested in thermal-imaging hardware and perhaps radar. I'm new to them all.

Hello Sean
If you want to get hands-on with thermal imaging hardware then you may be interested to know that this type of technology has dramatically reduced in price in recent years. IR cameras used to costs thousands (€, £, $) but can now be had for around US$500. See here for the FLIR C2: https://www.flir.com/products/c2/

I bought one of these a couple of years ago for building inspections etc. I would expect it to show very clearly any captured animals as long as they are alive. Having said that, you need ideally a good difference in temperature between object of interest and surrounding area. From my time in Taiwan I would expect that for some part of the year you won't get much contrast. Worth trying anyway. This would, of course, be a rather manual solution to finding captured animals.

In theory, you would be able to pick up metal objects with this, too, even if they are at the same temperature as their surroundings. Bare metals (i.e. not covered in something like paint) have a very different "thermal signature" (technically known as "emissivity") from many other materials. This means they usually appear much cooler in a thermal image than they actually are. The reason you are unlikely to pick this up with a basic IR camera is quite simply the low resolution of such cameras. The FLIR C2 has 60x80 pixels. Much more expensive cameras are better on this point but you would still have to watch very carefully to pick up a thin wire that would only be a few pixel wide at the most.

It may be worthwhile getting in touch with FLIR directly to see what ideas they have. I would not be surprised if they have a base in Taiwan.

Good luck,
Joachim

Hello Sean
I just had another thought: industrial machine vision systems come with all sorts of image inspection tools including such things as "edge detection". I wonder if this could be used in conjunction with a normal (not thermal) high resolution digital camera.

The general idea would be to:
1. take photos whilst on the move through a snare-infested area where a high res camera would be able to pick up a thin wire loop with sufficient resolution to make it visible;
2. let attached computer with vision software analyse images instantly for straight or looped edges that would indicate a snare.

What could help considerably is to take pictures in subdued natural light, maybe at dusk or dawn using a strong flash, possibly not just the built in flash of the camera but an external one. On the assumption that most snares are made from plain "shiny" metal, they should show up fairly well as "bright highlights" against the otherwise fairly dull (in terms of specular reflection) undergrowth. It would get more difficult though if the foilage was covered in water droplets as these would reflect the flash light, too.

I admit this is an idea that just sprung to mind and I have no idea how well this may work in practice. If you want to have a go yourself, set up a typical "snare scenario" and take some high resolution photos as described above from a few metres away. Then use free vision system software to process the images on your computer and see what you can find. Try this one, for example, https://www.teledynedalsa.com/en/products/imaging/vision-software/sherlock/

I have used it some years ago (for an industrial application) and found it very useful on early trials as it allows you to use all features processing images from a local folder rather than a live camera. This would be all you need to test whether there is any merit in this.

Sorry if industrial vision applications are not within your skill set but I thought I mention it here in case someone else wants to investigate it. I am not exactly twiddling thumbs otherwise I would be seriously tempted to have a look at this myself (pun intended:)).

Let me know if you need some more input on this,
Joachim

P.S.: A rough calculation on camera resolution:
- snare wire diameter is, say, 3 mm
- target size in image of the wire is at least 6 pixels (to reliably show diagonal edges)
- 20 Megapixel camera image is about 5000 pixel wide
- then you could cover an area 2.5 m wide per image (5000 / 6 * 3)
> this may be a workable distance to cover per image.
 

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discussion

How to help

Hello everybody, I am a technologist, specialising in apps/web/backend/startups, and I feel an ever-growing duty to use those skills for animal conservation; particularly...

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Hi Ross,

Let's connect - I am a social scientist that has been researching demand reduction and am working on some projects, including a website, that helps consumers avoid illegal "unsafe" souvenirs. I have a few ideas floating around in my head that would take someone more tech-savvy than me to know if feasible - maybe we can exchange thoughts via email. I'd love to hear more about your ideas to reduce demand!) Feel free to email me at [email protected]

Best, Rosemary

Hi Ross,

We are developing a web-based platform with multiple tools to analyse biodiversity quality, habitat assessement management and other apps. We need some help thinking how to monetise the apps/subscriptions as well as further developing the platform. You can email me here: [email protected] if interested. Thanks.

Kind regards,

Vance

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event

WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Recording: Big Data in Conservation

WILDLABS Team
The WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series is a program of webinars that bring leading engineers in the tech sector together with conservation practitioners to share information, identify obstacles, and discuss how to best move...

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discussion

Project BEESWAX7 Infographic

Hi, To give you the "heads-up" on our Project BEESWAX7, herewith attached is a copy of our project Inforgraphic which describes the concept. I hope you like it. Tally...

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Love it! Covers so many of my interests - conservation, beekeeping and fiddling with Arduinos - would love to know more about the project.

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discussion

Live discussion on intersection of conservation and games

Hi all We're conducting a live interview with Brooke Tully on the intersection of games and conservation as part of her "Innovations in Conservation" series....

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Hey Gautum,  
Looks like the interview went really well! If people weren't able to make it, Gautam's interview along iwth others in the series are all available to watch here

Steph

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discussion

Mobile App Comparison Table

Hi All, I am currently working with the BirdLife Forestry department in order to develop a capacity building reference document that summarises different data collection and...

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Some other data collection apps.

https://www.proofsafe.com.au/

https://five.epicollect.net/

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event

Tusk Conservation Lecture 2018: Ted Schmitt

Tusk
Tusk are delighted to announce that their Tusk Conservation Lecture 2018 speaker will be Ted Schmitt of Vulcan Inc, Paul G Allen Philanthropies. He will speak about advancing Innovation in conservation, a talk that will...

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