Small computers tied to tree trunks in the Brazilian Amazon are the latest weapon in the arsenal of scientists and environmentalists battling destructive jungle invaders.
The boxes, named “curupiras” after a folkloric forest creature that preys on hunters and poachers, sport sensors and software “to recognize the sounds of chainsaws and tractors, or anything that could cause deforestation,” project manager Thiago Almeida told reporters.
“We recorded the sound of chainsaws and tractors in the forest ... then, all the collected sounds were passed on to the AI [artificial intelligence] team to train [the program] so that ... it would only recognize these sounds and not the characteristic sounds of the forest, such as animals, vegetation and rain,” Almeida said.
PHOTO: AFP
Once identified, details of the threat can then be relayed to a central point and agents deployed to deal with it.
“The advantage of this system is that it can detect an attack ... or a threat in real time,” said researcher Raimundo Claudio Gomes of Amazonas State University, which is behind the project.
Unlike satellite data, which reveal deforestation only after the fact, the curupiras can detect “when the destruction starts,” Gomes said.
The sensors look like small Internet modems, but are in fact wireless and can relay data up to 1km via satellite to others in a network.
The project has just completed its pilot phase with 10 prototype boxes fixed to trees in a densely forested area near Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state.
Early results from the project, financed by Brazilian company Hana Electronics, have been “very promising,” Gomes said.
The team is now looking for more funding to add hundreds more sensors to the system, including ones that will be able to detect smoke and heat from forest fires.
Gomes said that unlike audio sensor-based systems already used in other countries, the Manaus project is comparatively inexpensive, as it does not require large antennas for data transmission.
Each sensor costs about US$200 to US$300 to manufacture.
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