2040 Newsletter

Manufacturing partner for The Cacophony Project

Kia ora and welcome to our April newsletter.

I hope you've enjoyed consecutive long weekends (in Aotearoa). We've had engineers away on holiday, sick, and parental leave. It's nice having everyone back on board now to keep pushing things along.

This month, we’re sharing software updates for the DOC AI Cam, solar testing news, manufacturing progress, and fascinating long-term monitoring results from Akaroa showing possums have disappeared.

We also have a brief update on our High Interaction Rate trap.

Next month I will be presenting at the Regional Councils' Terrestrial Ecology Forum online in May. Interested in having us speak to your group about The Cacophony Project? Just reply to this email.

There are a whole lot of other organisations innovating in this space. In case you missed it, Yarn Mesh released their AI trailcam this month.

Kā mihi nui,
Shaun Ryan
2040 Limited, manufacturing partner for The Cacophony Project.

PS: Shout out to John in Timaru who complained that I used too many Māori words in my newsletter. Aroha mai e hoa. It's not going to change. Let me know if you need anything translated.

DOC AI Cam

Outcome monitoring

We published the results of an analysis of the possums detected by Thermal Cameras in Grant's back yard in Akaroa. This graphically demonstrated the impact of the work by Pest Free Banks Peninsula to remove possums. From possum abundance, to none this year.

It's also a great demonstration of how the thermal cameras can be used to monitor the impact of predator control. It’s very easy: just set up the camera and swap batteries every 1-2 months. The AI does most of the work.

If you are looking for some rigorous statistical analysis for your project, I recommend talking to Proteus. I met Darryl from Proteus at PF2050 Hui last month. They are providing proof of absence modelling for PF2050 projects

Software updates

This month we released the software that allows the AI to run on the camera. For now, we have some trap manufacturers integrating the DOC AI Cam with their traps,. We're very excited to see how this goes. The release also fixed a bug causing incorrect battery capacity readings.

We also released a new version of the Cacophony Sidekick app. This fixes a few small bugs and is part of an effort to improve the usability of the DOC AI Cam by first focusing on removing annoying bugs.

Upcoming software releases

We are working on password resetting and remembering for Sidekick, the next version of browse getting closer to a full release, and tweaks to the thermal camera tracking.

We have also received access to some of DOC's labelled bird recordings. This should significantly expand the number of birds we can recognise and the quality of the recognition. Watch this space.

Occasionally we get asked if we're able to process recordings from other acoustic recorders, like the Audio Moth or the the DOC recorders. This isn't something we do, but we've heard DigiLab are very capable and worth checking out if you need this sort of service.

Manufacturing update

We have a much smaller backlog of cameras to manufacture now. There’s a 2-3 week wait for cameras due to parts delivery timelines.

Our solar solution

We started testing our low light solar solution with the Summit Road Society in Christchurch. Unfortunately the initial tests didn’t meet our charging expectations, but we’re refining the PCB for the next version and will resume testing soon.

Based on the feedback I've had, there seems to be a lot of interest in this. Stay tuned for further updates.

Summit Road's DOC AI Cam with solar panel on the right

High Interaction Rate Trap

We had been waiting for parts for our new trap design. These have arrived and we have started our lifecycle testing. This involves opening and closing the trap over 10,000 times to ensure its reliability.

Once this is available we will offer upgrades to our existing trap customers. This controller includes the ability to connect a DOC AI Cam and use the machine vision to control when the trap is active.

Video of the single spool trap opening and closing the blinds