Company uses drone technology to trace animals within the wild
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Dr. Debbie Saunders, Wildlife Drones
Dr. Debbie Saunders, an Australian wildlife researcher, had an issue.
“Most of my profession has been focused on endangered species and, having the ability to protect the habitat of those species in order that they proceed to survive,” she said in an interview. “I used to be working on small migratory birds and so they can only be tracked using tiny tags and everybody who had tried to trace them had failed.”
Researchers, like Saunders who were studying species equivalent to the Swift Parrot, were capable of capture and tag the birds with radio transmitters. But, once they were released back into the wild, the scientists found it was almost unimaginable to select up their radio signals to trace them for future study using the hand-held receivers that comprised the state-of-the-art tracking method on the time.
Saunders decided to show to unmanned aerial vehicles to supply the platform for tracking the tagged animals. That research led to the launching in 2016 of Wildlife Drones, a Canberra-based start-up with a customer base that spans Australia, the U.S. and other countries. Prior to the creation of the corporate, nonetheless Saunders spent plenty of years proving out the concept of drone-based wildlife tracking and developing a research prototype.
“This was just an idea many, a few years ago and, we did a research project simply to see if it was even possible,” Saunders said. “This was well before DJI was even prevalent, and so, the drones were really small, they didn’t carry very much, they didn’t fly for very long, in order that’s the type of constraints that we worked with initially.”
Nonetheless, once her early research proved the feasibility of using unmanned aerial vehicles to trace tagged animals, the subsequent steps involved refining the technology, working with radio frequency engineers, software engineers and industrial designers to create a product and to make it accessible to the general public.
The result was a set of products that has attracted a world customer base, particularly within the U.S., where 50 to 60 percent of Wildlife Drones’ customers are positioned. The corporate’s flagship product, a drone-based telemetry system able to tracking as much as 40 animals concurrently, consists of a radio receiver payload, which could be attached to an off-the-shelf drone, and a laptop base station.
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Saunders said customers have developed plenty of applications for the technology, from its original use for tracking the placement of endangered animals, to farmers and ranchers keeping track of their livestock, to conservationists following the movements of invasive species in order to raised control or eliminate them.
“You could have invasive species which are incredibly damaging, not only to the natural environment, but to agricultural production as well, like feral pigs, for instance, or Burmese pythons down within the Everglades,” she said.
The system has even proven useful in tracking invasive hornets coming into the northern U.S. from Canada. The pesky insects are captured using baited traps after which fitted with tiny radio tags glued onto their bodies. Released back into the wild, the small invaders could be tracked back to their nest, which may then be destroyed, eliminating the infestation.
The usage of drones allows the operator to trace highly mobile animals across a wide range of terrains, which can be unimaginable using other tracking methods. “If something is pretty fast-paced, the drone can go over fences and across roads and over a mountain ridge, if need be,” Saunders said.
As well as, since it is airborne, the drone can provide a high point to gather radio signals over long distances, without being blocked by trees, mountains or buildings.
Along with its proprietary radio telemetry technology, Wildlife Drones also offers thermal imaging services. Since thermal imaging allows the user to locate untagged animals within the wild, the 2 technologies could be very complementary.
“You should use the thermal imaging to seek out animals within the landscape. Then you definitely can actually go and catch them and tag them. And you possibly can then track them with the radio telemetry system,” she said.
System works best with less ‘noisy’ drones
Since it picks up VHF radio signals, the system is barely compatible with a certain class of drones, those which are shielded in such a way that the electronic “noise” from the UAV’s internal workings doesn’t interfere with the external signals from the tagged animals. For that reason, Saunders said the system doesn’t work thoroughly with DJI drones.
“For instance, the Matrice 300 is incredibly noisy within the VHF band,” she said. “For those who can imagine, we’re attempting to listen for something, but there’s something right next to us that’s screaming, it’s going to be very difficult to select up the signal of a low-powered tag.”
The system works higher when used with other, “quieter” UAVs, equivalent to Freefly Systems Astro, produced in Washington state.
“We did numerous R&D with them. That’s been really successful, and now that’s our key platform,” she said. “It’s a wonderful platform made within the U.S., and that also signifies that it could actually be utilized by clients who should not capable of use Chinese-made drones.”
Wildlife Drones is repeatedly working to innovate its technology. Its most up-to-date product release, the Dragonfly payload unit, for instance, is smaller, lighter and rather more robust than the corporate’s previous payload packages.
“The smaller and the lighter we will get the payload, while still being robust is certainly a goal,” Saunders said. “It’s a extremely exciting piece of kit that you just literally just clip into the gimbal, strap the antenna onto the legs, and you simply take off and begin tracking. All of it just type of works out of the box.”
Although Wildlife Drones’ technology is currently designed to be used with quadcopters, Saunders said she would really like to see it will definitely be adapted to be used with larger aerial vehicles, equivalent to next-generation vertical take-off and landing vehicles (VTOL).
“I believe the several VTOL platforms are going to be game changers by way of how far you possibly can go, how much data you’re capable of collect and all the remaining of it. But, after all, that relies on the regulations allowing long-range flights or beyond line of sight flights.”