Rainforest Connection | Director or Marketing | REMOTE, from U.S. | https://rfcx.org
Rainforest Connection (RFCx) is a non-profit tech startup at the edge of conservation technology. We build and deploy scalable, open source solutions that can halt illegal logging and poaching in forests — simultaneously enabling biodiversity measurement and monitoring. RFCx is the next-gen nervous system for the natural world.
We are a fully remote and virtual team so you can work from anywhere in the United States for this role. Please send a cover letter detailing why you would be the best candidate for this role and your resume to contact@rfcx.org by 7-May-2020.
Hey Wes!
Upvoted your prev comment before I realized it was you. Hope all's well; doing great here. A couple years ago when I worked for you, on your recommendation, I listened to unabridged audiobooks of both "Winning" and "The Hard Thing About Hard Things". Got more out of the latter than the former, but both were worthwhile.
Slainte,
CW
This is a super interesting tip — thank you, we were not aware of this (it is reminiscent of tracking of shipping vessels). Do you know of where and how we might be able to make these data available to local partners, like the Tembé tribe, and others? Do you have any contacts at Deere Forestry? Thanks in advance.
Great question, and one that’s of particular importance in our design. Many IoT-type systems make use of on-device data analysis in order to minimize the most energy intensive process: data transfer. Our hardware focuses instead on getting full audio streams up into the cloud in near-real time, continuously, 24 hrs a day. This requires an exceptional amount of energy, as well as the ability to pool energy to continue operating at night and during poor weather. That said, we’ve really overcompensated on energy capture and storage—we operate under the assumption that we should be able to support 1.5 watts of continuous power draw 24hrs a day (normally it’s closer to 50% of this). But that means we try to be able to generate 35-40 watt-hours of solar energy for each day (on average).
This is further complicated by the shady/infrequently lit conditions of the tree canopy. So, when direct light shows up (sometimes for moments or minutes only) we want to be able today capture as much as possible (high charging amperage and ample solar panels).
Our batteries (LiFePO4) must be able to support this, and not decline over 1-2 years of use being fully discharged and recharged each day).
We also designed a type of solar array that is specifically intended for the tree canopies. If this is interesting I’d be more than happy to elaborate more!
That is a really good answer, and thanks for taking the time to write it up. The difference in instantaneous wattage produced by good quality 156mm monocrystalline Si cells is huge in direct sunlight vs shade. You can take a modern 60-cell, 300W rated panel (STC rating) and hold a piece of cardboard a meter away from it, to temporarily shade it, and see a huge difference. What size of PV panel are you using for each node, and how many/what type of cells?
I'm assuming that for cost reasons and economies of scale that you're using some sort of standard off the shelf PV module that can be acquired in bulk, at low cost, such as a 156mm poly x 54-cell module. Or maybe something a bit smaller than that.
1.5W load x 24 hours x 31 days = 1116 Wh per month
For a typical node what is your calculated PV production in Wh per month? Taking the 40Wh per day figure mentioned above, that's 40 * 31 = 1240Wh per month production goal from the PV. Will of course vary with mounting location and shading, but I'm sure you have a floor figure that you don't want to go below, or batteries will reach a LVD threshold overnight and everything will shut off.
I'm also making an assumption that per-node cost is somewhat of a concern in general. For very small PV setups a decent charge controller (that can handle up to the max of one medium sized panel) is not very expensive. Are you using an off-the-shelf $65-75 chinese small MPPT PV charge controller with voltage levels set up to match your LiFePo4 battery setup, or something you've designed yourselves? something like this? https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Controller-Converter-Regulator-C...
That's for small time abuses. What happens in the case of a full blown illegal logging operation involving a entire company? What about cases where things get violent? It's not uncommon for mining operations in the Amazon to end with natives getting massacred, the loggers probably not unwillingly to do that to anyone who gets in there way. When you come across a full scale logging op, do things get complicated?
Exactly. In that case they arrested a couple of poor peasants, but the people/organizations that both financed and enabled it walk free.
Like with drug labs in the jungle, all this cool technology is great for detection but ends up hitting a brick wall of corruption when it comes to actually solving the problem.
Great points you bring up and indeed things do get complicated as you face a bigger and more organized operation. This is the case in parts of the Tembe territory in Brazil and it is the reason why we work with many partners and agencies on the ground to ensure that the data we capture is used wisely.
Thanks for checking out Rainforest Connection! Seems that there are lots of [appropriate] questions about how well this works in the forest, and how our partners on the ground follow up on alerts. Here’s a recent intervention in Peru that sums up the process:
https://twitter.com/lilitjejauregui/status/97585519352188518...
This is a really cool application of this technology, great work! Do you have any blog posts explaining the types of models you're using or open source repos that one could contribute to?
(Asking as a ML/Software Engineer who's pleasantly surprised and yearning to contribute to something like this!)
Thanks! We are a relatively small engineering team and we were mainly focused on improving our system. This took a lot of effort and time, we just haven't had a chance yet to think about open sourcing or blogging. Our days were focused on coding. If there's interest in blog posts, I could write up some of our technology. Just let me know whether there's an interest and what you'd like to know.
I know that the US National Park Service Natural Sounds/Night Skies division has an incredible about of environmental audio data that's begging for automated analysis. This could be of much use to them. They do analyse their data, but it's largely been manual [1].
That's very interesting. The Rainforest Connection system has the ability to detect more than only chainsaws, so it could be really interesting to learn more from the datasets; we'll look into that. Thanks so much for sharing!
Just signed up for your newsletter! I understand you don't want to open up the audio fingerprinting details, but everything else would be very interesting. I am interested in how do you get an old Android phone to run some your APKs headless, how do you update them OTA, how do you power them with solar (I guess you have an external power bank) — some basic questions if I want to put an old Android phone to my DIY project use.
I don't use Android but just did some googling and only have these ideas: roll your APK updates over a custom F-Droid repo, use SSHDroid to log into the headless machine, and/or use one of the DEX patching libraries. How far off are my thoughts?
Do you setup wifi hotspots in the forest for this devices to send data back? Solar chargers is it universal for any android phone? what happens if phone is unable charge and shuts down?
are those solar chargers available for sale to use in other forest projects?
Also, I recall hearing about how some people or villages opt in to deforestation because they are offered a significant amount of money which can be used to feed their kids and provide an education which may help their communities eventually escape the poverty trap. Do you know anything about this, and if true, do you know of any groups trying to help?
