An FPGA-Based WASN for Remote Real-Time Monitoring of Endangered Species: A Case Study on the Birdsong Recognition of Botaurus stellaris

• Main Authors: Marcos Hervás, Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès, Francesc Alías, Martí Salvador
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-06-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: wireless acoustic sensor networks; FPGA; remote real-time monitoring; birdsong recognition; endangered species; Botaurus stellaris
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/6/1331

Fast environmental variations due to climate change can cause mass decline or even extinctions of species, having a dramatic impact on the future of biodiversity. During the last decade, different approaches have been proposed to track and monitor endangered species, generally based on costly semi-automatic systems that require human supervision adding limitations in coverage and time. However, the recent emergence of Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks (WASN) has allowed non-intrusive remote monitoring of endangered species in real time through the automatic identification of the sound they emit. In this work, an FPGA-based WASN centralized architecture is proposed and validated on a simulated operation environment. The feasibility of the architecture is evaluated in a case study designed to detect the threatened Botaurus stellaris among other 19 cohabiting birds species in The Parc Natural dels Aiguamolls de l’Empord