Assignment

Extended abstract and Block diagram

Geotechnical & IoT Monitoring Methods (21GE614)

- by Advaith S Pillai

AM.EN.P2GEO22010
Block Diagram
 Report

Introduction :
Bird migrations are an annual phenomenon where flocks of birds move seasonally between their breeding
grounds (where they build nests, raise fledglings) & their wintering grounds (where they arrive to escape
harsher winters elsewhere & enjoy milder climes of their chosen nesting site). The breeding season
usually extends from early spring until late summer by which time the hatchlings have fully developed and
no longer require any parental care. This is followed by the wintering season which begins from early
autumn until the beginning of spring, where the birds not only face environmental pressures to fatten up
before the long migration, but also time their journey such that they arrive before the harsh winter begins
and navigate successfully to the correct waterholes/nesting sites.

Migrations themselves are of different scales: from ones that range between a few kilometers to
transcontinental ones. From an Indian context, most long-distance migratory birds arrive in order to
benefit from the milder winters and year round availability of food. Another salient feature among most
nesting sites is that they are built adjacent to sources of water, generally static/slow moving bodies such
as ponds, lakes, waterholes, wetlands, farmlands etc which also ensures easy access to food sources.

Over the past few decades it has been observed that the sightings of such migratory birds, both in terms
of number of individuals as well as different species detected, has been on a steady decline. The primary
reasons for this occurrence are habitat destruction, illegal hunting, scarcity of food resources, increased
accidents/mishaps during migration etc. This trend has been further accelerated due to global warming &
other associated secondary phenomena.

These changes are most apparent around urban wetland areas, where the rapid rate of urbanization,
coupled with pollution and habitat encroachment has resulted in a steep decline in bird populations. Many
migratory species sightings have become less frequent & far apart, whereas that of resident bird
populations have seen a marginal increase. Thus it is imperative that this reduction be monitored to give
us an indication about the scale of the problem, the impact it has on the behavior, distribution & ecology of
affected organisms, the effect of external factors that are difficult to predict such as climate change, avian
flu, fluctuation in food sources etc.
Objective :
There are plenty of cases of migratory species commonly seen up until a decade back, sightings of which
has become a rare occurrence. Since ground based sightings of many of these individual birds high up in
the canopy or deep inside a reed bed is a difficult proposition, might lead to misclassifications and most
importantly needs dedicated manpower in-situ, deployment of IoT-based modules to achieve the same
can achieve better results, while consuming less resources & time. These may be tailor-made according
to specific applications, accuracy requirements & most importantly budgetary constraints, supplementing
if not altogether replacing observers on ground.

Therefore the primary objective of this project is to develop a IoT-based system which can monitor the
different types of birds in a given urban wetland habitat, identify correctly the different migratory bird
species sighted therein, utilizing different strategically placed modules containing the various sensors
required for data collection.
Methodology :
The first task in order to achieve said objectives would be to design & develop sensor nodes/modules
utilizing & integrating different components, specific to fulfilling the function to be performed. The module
will consist of a micro-controller board (such as Raspberry-Pi) that can collect data from sensors, process
the data and transmit relevant results onto the cloud.

The microcontroller is connected to an 8MP Raspberry Pi camera which captures images of birds, only
when triggered by a microphone also connected to the Raspberry Pi. The omni-directional microphone
receives sound input from birds in the vicinity, which then compares the input sound with an already
existing database of bird calls for all possible birds in the particular habitat. This conditional switching
on/off of the camera ensures optimal utilization of available energy. The captured image is then classified
into one of several known bird species using Machine Learning algorithms & image processing
techniques, the calculations for which are performed by the pre-trained model present within the
microcontroller.

Once these modules are deployed in areas with a high incidence of birds, at varying elevations & in
different types of micro-habitats offering a wide field of view (FOV), the next task would be to determine
how the data acquired by these modules may be utilized. Since these IoT systems are deployed in an
urban area with sufficient cellular infrastructure in close proximity, use of LTE standard communication in
order to transmit data to the cloud will be a realistic & cost-effective approach.

Thus the processed data is transmitted onto the cloud where the list of detected species around the area
of study is recorded for further analysis & studies.

System Architecture :
The proposed system can be broken down into 3 blocks for a simpler representation:

● Sensors: There are two end devices used here. One of these is a microphone, which captures
the sound waves from the bird call and converts them into an electrical signal. The other one is a
camera, which captures images of the birds and sends the data over to the Raspberry Pi for
detection as well as classification.
● Gateway: The Raspberry Pi receives the electrical signal from the microphone and converts it into
a digital signal. The Raspberry Pi also has access to a cellular connection through the use of a
cellular modem, which in conjunction with a SIM card uses GSM/LTE to transmit the digital signal
to the cloud.
● Cloud: The cloud is a remote server that stores and processes data. The Raspberry Pi transmits
the digital signal to the cloud, where it is stored and processed. The received data here is the
detected sound of a bird sent by the microphone or the image of the bird, sent by the camera.
The cloud can then be used to analyze the data, classify the image/sound and hence determine
which is the species of migratory bird detected.
To fulfill the power requirements of the system, it must be connected to a renewable power source that is
able to provide a stable input of 5V, hence a solar panel connected through a tension regulator (input of
DC 8V-40V) will achieve this. The description given above is that of the proposed system for final
implementation. A slightly modified system will be used during the prototype implementation phase. To
fulfill the power requirements of the prototype, it is connected to a 10,000 mAh power bank which can
sustain power supply for approximately 3-4 days once deployed on-field. The trial phase would tentatively
contain 3 trials, namely :

1. Trial 1 - module contains only an omni-directional microphone which actively listens to the
sounds from the surroundings, records the sound snippets where it detects one of the calls from
pre-trained bird vocalizations, processes it within the Raspberry Pi using the pre-trained model
loaded beforehand, classifies this into one of the 5 migratory bird species the model is trained to
identify and then transmits this data (the classification result) to the cloud.
2. Trial 2 - module contains only the camera element which actively takes in image input from the
camera continuously, stores the images that contain the bird species in question from pre-trained
bird images, processes it within the Raspberry Pi using the pre-trained model loaded beforehand,
classifies this into one of the 5 migratory bird species the model is trained to identify and then
transmits this data (the classification result) to the cloud.
3. Trial 3 - module contains both the camera element as well as the omni-directional microphone,
thus attempts to integrate the results from both independent classifications to maximize accuracy
of prediction.
Choice of Species :
The 5 species of migratory birds chosen for identification are : Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata),
Blue-tailed Bee-eater (Merops philippinus), Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola), Greenshank (Tringa
nebularia), Eurasian Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) & Lesser Sand Plover (Charadrius
mongolus). These species were chosen as these are migratory birds that are generally detected in the
state of Kerala.

Challenges :
There are many external factors that may affect the efficacy of the model designed herein. Some of these
are as follows:

Microphone :

● since the area of deployment is an urban wetland, the presence of noise pollution is a major
factor in the accuracy of predictions made.
● another challenge can be the presence of multiple overlapping bird calls which takes place
especially during the twilight hours of morning & evening. The isolation of relevant bird calls for
the purpose of classification can be challenging.

Camera element :

● oftentimes birds will not be static while they appear in the field-of-view (FOV) of the camera. Thus
the camera must have a high frame-rate. Also the camera must have a decent resolution, so as
to be able to detect & capture images of birds in the FOV that are far-away.
● quality of captured images is dependant upon the amount of illumination the scene is exposed to.
Thus it may become very difficult to classify the birds correctly even though they may be detected
in the image, simply because of insufficient lighting (especially during the twilight hours of
morning & evening).

Deployment :

● visibility of birds in the foliage is very poor, hence deployment of the detection modules in areas
with a high frequency of such birds ensures higher chances of detection.
● most migratory birds tend to stay away from man-made structures and avoid displaying nesting
behavior around them as they are easily disturbed. Hence the entire success of the idea depends
upon the crucial factor how inconspicuous the deployed modules are.
● power consumption for the deployed modules needs to be carefully considered & designed
accordingly, since the actively listening microphone & camera draw heavily upon the power
source continuously. With the Raspberry Pi actively processing the large inflow of data from both
the microphone & camera and also processing all this onboard to finally yield the final
 classification that is transmitted to the cloud, the power source has to be capable enough to
supply & store/generate the required amount of energy.

Expected Outcome :
It is expected that the classification based on the sound samples alone will provide results with better
performance metrics and higher accuracy than that of trials 2 (i.e. with solely the camera element) & trial
3 (i.e. with both microphone & camera elements incorporated), provided that the area of the prototype
deployment does not have high levels of noise pollution. This makes intuitive sense as well, since in most
real-world circumstances, it is the call of the bird that is detected more often than the actual sighting of the
same.

Conclusion :
The IoT system thus designed is made for the purpose of detecting the presence of a chosen bird species
from a list of 5 species that the ML model is trained for. The results indicate whether or not the said
species of birds were detected in the area of deployment. This system can potentially be used to learn
about the variations in migratory patterns of select species of birds as a response to change in different
factors affecting their behavior.

References :
Kahl, Stefan, et al. "Large-Scale Bird Sound Classification using Convolutional Neural Networks." CLEF
(working notes) 1866 (2017).

Ramashini, Murugaiya, et al. "Robust cepstral feature for bird sound classification." International Journal
of Electrical and Computer Engineering 12.2 (2022): 1477.

Xie, Jie, and Mingying Zhu. "Sliding-window based scale-frequency map for bird sound classification
using 2D-and 3D-CNN." Expert Systems with Applications 207 (2022): 118054.