And the second unusual paper : using astronomical detection programs hooked up to a drone to go flying around detecting endangered animals. Well, there's something you don't see every day.
In this paper we describe an unmanned aerial system equipped with a thermal-infrared camera and software pipeline that we have developed to monitor animal populations for conservation purposes. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle this problem, we use freely available astronomical source detection software and the associated expertise of astronomers, to efficiently and reliably detect humans and animals in aerial thermal-infrared footage. Combining this astronomical detection software with existing machine learning algorithms into a single, automated, end-to-end pipeline, we test the software using aerial video footage taken in a controlled, field-like environment. We demonstrate that the pipeline works reliably and describe how it can be used to estimate the completeness of different observational datasets to objects of a given type as a function of height, observing conditions etc. -- a crucial step in converting video footage to scientifically useful information such as the spatial distribution and density of different animal species. Finally, having demonstrated the potential utility of the system, we describe the steps we are taking to adapt the system for work in the field, in particular systematic monitoring of endangered species at National Parks around the world.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01611
Sister blog of Physicists of the Caribbean in which I babble about non-astronomy stuff, because everyone needs a hobby
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's okay to like vinyl
Here's a nice if somewhat over-lengthy piece about why people prefer antiquated technologies like vinyl records instead of digital medi...
-
This is nice video which attempts to solve why the world is sometimes such a crappy place and obvious solutions don't get implemented. I...
-
"To claim that you are being discriminated against because you have lost your right to discriminate against others shows a gross lack o...
-
Three rules for any article on AI : 1) AI does not yet have the the same kind of understanding as human intelligence. 2) There is no guar...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Due to a small but consistent influx of spam, comments will now be checked before publishing. Only egregious spam/illegal/racist crap will be disapproved, everything else will be published.