More recent work focused on improvements in real-time data display of the drone position and radio tags, offline base-map useability and back-end data processing. Wildlife Drones have presented their integrated solution to conferences around Australia, and have a growing client base where our desktop app is a critical component contributing to important wildlife conservation efforts and research.

Debbie Saunders demonstrating the Wildlife Drones method

Dr Debbie Saunders, CEO of Wildlife Drones, gave us a great wrap:

“Gaia Resources did a wonderful job turning all our user interface ideas into reality.  Within a relatively short period of time we went from having a general idea of what we wanted to having a very impressive, incredibly user friendly and intuitive user interface.  This has dramatically increased our ability to demonstrate our technology to anyone who is interested.  All the feedback from customers, investors and the broader community has been overwhelming positive and we are also now thoroughly enjoying using our cutting edge technology with much greater ease.”

Wildlife Drones are currently working on a project looking at the differences in behaviour and movement of Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) in burnt and non-burnt environments. In this recent article, Debbie says:

“Usually when you are tagging wild animals there are always some that disappear, there are always some that take off. You end up spending all your time and effort looking for the missing animals. When you are on the ground with a handheld receiver, you’re tracking one animal at the time, you’re taking hours. With the drone we can track [the signals of] 40 animals at the same time, we could see all of the koalas all the time.”

In the aftermath of last summers devastating bushfires there is a lot of work going on in New South Wales and Victoria to monitor remaining populations of Koala and drones are playing a crucial and time-saving role in this research.

Over much the same timeframe, Gaia Resources has been working with the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) to develop another approach to monitoring Koala populations, via the I Spy Koala citizen science app. There is clearly a role for both approaches to help save our dwindling Koala populations, and perhaps there may be some synergy between them.

More information about this project can be found in our blogs and project page. And you can hear more about Wildlife Drones direct from Debbie in this upcoming Environmental Institute webinar.

If you’d like to discuss any of the topics covered in this post, please drop me a line at alex.chapman@gaiaresources.com.au, or connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

Alex

The post Drones for Wildlife appeared first on Gaia Resources.

Maintaining our independent approach, we now have drone companies as partners, so that depending on the challenge an organisation is trying to address – whether related to agriculture, mining, conservation or planning applications for example – we can design a capture program and mobilise quickly. There’s also the question of appropriateness, and whether drone imagery is the right type of data for a particular challenge – and so we equally have the relationships with aerial and satellite providers to cater for a range of remote sensing needs (keeping to our technology-agnostic principles).

A number of clients have come to us to help them achieve better environmental outcomes through the analysis of drone captured data and development of software encompassing drone technology. In one project we worked with an environmental company to define technical processes that delivered regulatory compliance data products using open source GIS software. In fact our foray into turning this type of data into useful mapping products goes back to 2016 when my former colleague James was working up in Shark Bay with Aerial Environment to map mangroves (see this blog).

The main subject of this entry though is about some birds – the critically endangered Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor) to be precise. One of our current clients, Wildlife Drones, spends their time radio-tracking these small migratory birds within their winter range to help shed light on their mysterious movements and improve conservation management.  This ground breaking work, featured on the ABC news recently, was conducted using drones and sophisticated signal processing algorithms which overcomes the time consuming and labour intensive process of manual radio-tracking.  Wildlife Drones’ latest radio-receiver system builds upon the outcomes from a previous research project that they recently published in Science Robotics.

The Critically Endangered Swift Parrot. Image courtesy of the Canberra Ornithologists Group and Geoffrey Dabb.

Prior to meeting the guys at Wildlife Drones, the only thing I knew about drones and birds was that in the Pilbara the Wedge Tailed Eagles were taking down mining company drones on a weekly basis. So it was refreshing to see a company was applying this technology to learn more about the movement patterns of species like the Swift Parrot –  a bird that responds to Australia’s “boom and bust” drought cycles by moving dynamically across vast areas of south eastern Australia.

Our team started working with a concept for a desktop app that could show the real-time coordinates of radio frequency tags on a base map.  We were first engaged to run a one day hackathon-like exercise internally which resulted in a proof-of-concept viewer and a choice of technology that would be suitable for a more operational solution. Imagine a small set of core requirements, simulated radio tag location data, and three Gaia Resources teams working with three different technologies, with a pitch of the pros and cons of each on the second day.

Serge and Sean breaking down the gear after an intense day of discovery hacking (above). The proof of concept Electron app displaying (simulated) real-time radio frequency tag positions.

As a result of this hackathon, we chose to work with Electron, which is a Javascript-based open-source framework allowing for the development of desktop applications using components originally developed for web applications.

The larger project to bring this desktop app to life is happening now, and it has been really exciting to be part of its development. Voon-Li, Serge and Sean have worked hard through two Agile sprints to produce a wireframe app (based on designs by Tracey) and then steadily make the designed buttons and workflows functional. We now have offline map caching and online satellite imagery services, dynamic map data display of tag frequencies and charting, export features… the list goes on. In the next sprint we are set to tackle synchronisation with cloud server storage, authentication and drone base station controls. All along we have been working collaboratively with the brains trust at Wildlife Drones to understand what will and won’t work for their on-ground activities.  A key aspect has been looking at the in-field and in-office use cases and working with an evolving ‘customer process.’   In particular is the requirement to provide an app that can function outside of mobile data range (e.g. within remote parks and reserves) but still provide full mapping and data collection capabilities, as well as synchronisation when back within mobile data coverage.

If you are interested in finding out more about what Wildlife Drones get up to, check out their website. Also feel free to reach out and start a conversation on the regular channels if you want to talk to us about drones, their suitability for your needs, and related data products. We can contacted by email, or via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Chris

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Just look at the Phantom 4, so packed with unbridled futuristic technology it is akin to the smart phone in our pockets – and it can be controlled by one as well. For around $2,500 you can now buy a bit of kit that can take super high resolution imagery over relatively large areas (it can travel up to five km from its base with 30 minutes flight time). Only years ago this type of capability would have cost $10s of thousands, and five years ago you would not have seen much change from $100k. The speed at which this technology is changing in the last two years alone is incredible.

However, there’s been a lot of issues with drones in the past (and Piers talked about it at a previous Georabble), and there are many protocols to follow when using them.  While the equipment is getting cheaper, it is critical to ensure the operators are not only accredited under the Civil Aviation Safety Authority but also have a proven track record of safe and professional drone piloting and imagery acquisition.  We have contracted Andrew Moore from Aerial Environment – who fits all these bills – to capture mangrove and seagrass imagery for an upcoming project in Shark Bay enabling us to accurately map and evaluate the distributions, which is scheduled for the end of May.

 Andrew with his pet drone

To prepare for the upcoming Shark Bay trip Andrew conducted a ‘dry run’ of the Bunbury Mangroves in the Leschenault Inlet, which he and I then jointly presented during some recent GIS training at the South West Catchment Council (SWCC) to showcase the viability of drones for their on-ground work.  We actually loaded the imagery directly into SWCC’s GRID instance for the demonstrations.

The imagery in GRID

The imagery (a more detailed version can be seen below) was captured at an altitude of 260 ft, which Andrew said is the ‘sweet spot’ for resolution and coverage. At this height Andrew captured all the Mangroves within the inlet in 15 minutes with a resolution of four cm! You can actually see small sections of individual plants that have suffered die-off, along with their complex root systems.  To top this off the ‘out of the box’ camera also collects enough data to create a 3D model of the entire area, enabling fly-throughs from any height showing individual mangroves!

Captured imagery of the Bunbury Mangroves (click on the image)

I can’t wait to see the drone in action again when Andrew and I head up to Shark Bay in the next couple of weeks.

It certainly seems that the viability of acquiring beautiful, high-resolution imagery for conservation groups with limited budgets is greatly improved and can translate into real efficiencies for environmental planning and monitoring with virtually no environmental impact.  When quality gear is coupled with a quality operator, like Andrew, then the sky is really the limit!

If you would like further information about how this sort of imagery might be useful for your organisation, you can email me directly here or you can start a conversation with us via Twitter, LinkedIn or our Facebook page.

James

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