Camera Trap for Wildlife Study
Presented by Niyaz N
Guided by Dr André Pittet
a Camera Trap team effort….
Aim of the Project was …
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To develop a system that automatically takes pictures
of animals in the wild, triggered by their movement.
Characteristics: simple to install and operate, reliable,
rugged, low power consumption, flexible, cost
effective
Design Goals that was taken up
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Multi function board which has …
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Motion detector circuitry
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User Selectable options like
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With selectable sensitivity adjustment
Delay between pictures
Delay for camera refresh
Picture mode..single, double,triple, movie
Day / night / 24hr operation
Support for Slave flash
Remote/Multi camera triggering
Dual detector support
Support for Analog/Digital Camera
Interface circuit and controller
How it was designed ?…
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Basics….
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Detection of Animal using Passive methods
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Passive IR detection used
Fresnel’s lens focuses to IR detector
Trigger the camera when detected
Other issues …
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Giving periodic refresh to the camera to prevent shutoff
Operating the slave flash only when needed
Flexibility to the operator for day/night/24hrs operation
How Is It Done ?…
DIP switches
 Flash / Light Control
PIR Motion
Detection
External
Input
opto
isolated
switches
PIC micro
controller
Day / Night
Sensing
Refresh
Trigger
To Camera
Common
Trigger logic
Day / Night Logic
Battery
Battery Test
Push Button
Power
Conditioning
Warm Up Test LED(Red)
Battery Test LED (Green)
Available User Settings …
Delay b/n Pic
00 - 5 Sec
01 - 30 Sec
10 – 2 min
11 – 15 min
Day /Night
00- Day only
01- Night only
1X- 24 hr
Picture Mode
00 - Single
01 - Double
10– Triple
11 - Movie
Refresh Rate
00- 7 min
01 – 2 min
10 – 2 hr
1X – Always On
EXTRN
00 – OR
01 – AND
1X – EXTRN ONLY
Program Modules…
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Startup
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Refresh Module
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This contains the refresh pulse program depending on the user
setting
Extrn_Occurred
PIR_Occurred
Trigger and Delay Module
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This module contains the initialization of the PIC and giving a delay
of 2 min for power supply settling; Pulsing the test/red LED
Deals with the triggering pulse and the flash pulse
Deals also with the delay between pictures
Init_interrupts – to initialize the interrupts
Interrupt Module
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Handles the interrupts- change in PIR/ Extrn & Refresh Timer
timeout
About the Program…
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The Program Checks
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Day / Night setting is correct
Whether it is Extrn Only mode and if it is , does
not trigger when PIR triggers
Whether it is Extrn OR Mode, if then triggering
immediately
If it is Extrn AND mode , it checks the occurred
flag and if set triggers, otherwise sets the
occurred flag correspondingly and waits for 15 sec
for the other occurrence(PIR/EXTRN)
More about the program…
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It also considers …
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Flash output is enabled only during Night
Continuous Flash output in Movie Mode
Delay between Flash and trigger is taken
depending on Refresh Delay setting
To give the periodic refresh even during
the delay time between pictures
Results …both quantifying and qualifying
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The Power requirements were measured
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PIC
- 25.7 uA
The board functionality was tested with additional
detectors
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The whole board
 When idle
- 0.22 mA
 With Refresh pulse output - 3.64 mA
 With Refresh and trigger
- 7.46 mA
To conclude …
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Camera traps thus give a glimpse into a world which standard
photography cannot capture.
Animals that would never show themselves in the presence of humans
are perfectly willing to make an appearance around the inanimate
camera trap system.
As a result, a variety of interesting wild creatures can be photographed
in their habitat without resorting to the use of captive subjects, trained
behavior or artificial environments.
Camera-traps are thus becoming an indispensable tool for studying
wildlife. They can provide irrefutable evidence of presence as well as
data to estimate densities of species.
Some things about PIC 16F628…
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Low Power
15uA @ 32Khz clock typical
 1uA standby typical
16 I/O Ports
3 Timers
Analog Support
2K x 14 Flash Program Memory
224 x 8 RAM / 128 x 8 EEPROM Data memory
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More on Fresnel Lens
More on PIR
More on How system detects
Pyroelectric Sensor
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The pyroelectric sensor is made of a crystalline material that
generates a surface electric charge when exposed to heat in the
form of infrared radiation. (EG: Lithium Tantalate )
When the amount of radiation striking the crystal changes, the
amount of charge also changes and can then be measured with
a sensitive FET device built into the sensor.
The sensor elements are sensitive to radiation over a wide
range so a filter window is added to the package to limit
incoming radiation to the 8 to 14um range which is most
sensitive to body radiation.