The Arribada Initiative strives to make conservation technology open, affordable, and accessible to all who need them. They designed an open-source, programmable, low-cost, time lapse camera for Penguin Watch that would take pictures year round in the extreme weather conditions of Antarctica. Penguin Watch then uploads the photographs to their website where citizens and scientists can help count the penguins, juveniles and eggs in each image.

Over three seasons, the cameras have exceeded expectations and have captured over 25,000 thousand of high-resolution images that have delivered critical insights on penguin populations, breeding and sea ice.

Product Design Challenges in Antarctica

Operating an electronic device without any maintenance in Antarctica is a big challenge. Temperatures regularly drop to -30C and winds can reach 100km/h. Couple that with snow, ice and long dark winters and it makes it difficult to keep a system running for multiple years.

The cameras were ultimately placed in three very remote locations with only limited windows each year for access: One in King penguin colony in South Georgia and two at Gentoo penguin colony on the Antarctic peninsula.

Open Sources Timelapse Camera Design

None of the off the shelf cameras Arribada tested provided the reliability or flexibility the team needed. The decision was made to build an open source solution, with readily available, affordable components. Once built, wildlife conservationists could recreate, customize and build upon the solution.

The camera consists of several core components.

The brains of the solution is the Raspberry Pi Zero coupled with the PiRa zero. The PiRa zero provides the schedule to turn the Pi on and off on a schedule, dramatically reducing power consumption.

The Voltaic solar panels and LiFePO4 batteries deliver ongoing power to the camera. The cameras are scheduled to capture more images during breeding season when there is correspondingly more sunlight (and more power available) and reduce activity during the darker winter months. While it is possible to send data from the cameras via satellite, for this project, images were stored on an SD card and retrieved as conditions permitted.

Timelapse Images Data and Insights

Over 25,000 images were uploaded and used for Penguin Watch over the past 3+ years. Images that would otherwise have been impossible to obtain in high-resolution were taken and recovered as well. The system has provided some of the most detailed time lapse, high-resolution photographs of floating sea-ice in Antarctica.

Next Steps

Arribada Initiative is now working on the next generation of this open source camera platform. They are likely going to increase the amount of solar panel Wattage in order to be able to capture additional images.

In addition, they are looking to improve local image processing using machine learning and other techniques. If they can process information about the image (i.e. number of penguins, amount of sea ice), that data can be transmitted to scientists for analysis in close to real time and reduce the amount of manual processing that has to go into reviewing each photograph.

If you would like to learn about using Voltaic’s small solar panels in your next application, please schedule a time with someone from our team.

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