UAVs will fight poachers
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Poachers annually destroy a huge number of animals for their own gain, only in South and Central Africa because of the valuable ivory, about 40 thousand elephants die. In addition, poachers pose a great danger for rhinoceroses, the horn of which consists of the same material as the human nail, but despite this, illegal hunting for these animals can soon make this species of animals endangered.
The head of the Lindbergh Foundation John Petersen noted that rhinoceroses and elephants can disappear from our planet in less than 10 years, if not taken any measures to combat poaching.
The main goal of the fund is to protect nature and animals using various technologies. Previously, the fund had already provided assistance to the Kenyan environmental protection service in the form of special aircraft, which help to monitor the movement of poachers.
But it is worth noting that the aircraft have several disadvantages - they can be brought down, in addition, in the dark the visibility is significantly reduced, when the usual illegal hunting for animals. With this in mind, the fund's specialists focused on drones - unmanned aerial vehicles that track the activity of illegal hunters at night using infrared radiation. The new drones are called Air Shepherd and are only part of the whole system, and not just for observation.
Air Shepherd are equipped with a special analysis system, which was developed by experts at the University of Maryland. The focused analysis system allows conservation workers to step forward - thanks to this function in drones it will be possible to find out where the poachers are going and to take measures to prevent the crime.
Initially, the University of Maryland developed an algorithm that predicts the actions for the Ministry of Defense. These drones-predictors were to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan to calculate where homemade explosive devices are located, from which a large number of American soldiers die, but experts have adapted the system to track violators of the law.
The principle of the analysis system is based on the creation of a database for each area where certain animals live, choosing the most vulnerable in the face of poachers. The system also takes into account the weather forecast, the availability of infrastructure, terrain, illegal actions of hunters in the past, which together allows foreseeing the actions of poachers.
The system processes the data and creates a route for the UAV.
According to the experts of the Petersen Foundation, such a system of unmanned surveillance will help employees of animal welfare services who are not able to be simultaneously in several places.
Soon, in one of the republics of South Africa, the first group will start using drones, by the beginning of autumn specialists plan to start work in another South African republic.
According to John Petersen Air Shepherd can be attributed to the systems of the future, it gives hope to save life to a huge number of elephants and rhinos. Where there was testing a new system of unmanned surveillance, cases of illegal hunting completely stopped, something that could not be achieved before.