Turtles At Risk

1. Presented by Amira Ahmed El-Sharkawy Ibrahim Turtles At Risk

2. The Main Idea • There are six of eight turtle species in Ontario are listed as endangered, threatened or of special concern . • Biologists are suffered that there are no enough information to make recovery strategies for that species. • WSN technology would be more effective and less expensive than existing technologies for acquiring this information. • So, Ontario needs a wireless large-scale sensing network to improve methods of collecting information.

3. The Main Idea(cont.) • This WSN will enable efficient, actuated and real time monitoring of the turtles at risk and their habitats. • Researchers and the interested organization will deploy sensors anywhere at any time and receive collected data wirelessly in real time for making decisions. • Decision makers will be able to have accurate and immediate access to the measured data about the targeted species at risk. • The focus will be about two species: Wood turtles and Blanding's turtle

4. The currently used Technologies • GPS • Used to determine the exact location of the turtle and store the readings at pre-set periods. • When the researcher recovers the telemetry equipment with GPS, the data can be downloaded and plotted on a computer to give info about the animal movement . • Frequent reading consume the battery rapidly whereas leaving a long periods makes the information less accurate. • High Frequency Radio telemetry • Transmitter is attached to a turtle and emits a signal that can picked by a directional antenna held by a researcher. • To receive a strong signal the antenna must point directly to the transmitter. So, the researcher should rotatethe aerial and holding it in both vertical and horizontal positions. • Once the researcher gets close to the turtle, the antenna becomes less useful for location. so they don't know the exact direction to the animal, just that its a short distance.

5. Cons of these technologies • Data is incomplete because it collected over large intervals. • Need intensive work to collect data. • Data collection is performed during day light so, it prevent the observing of turtles’s habitat in other period. • The network isn’t fault tolerant.

6. The Main Achievements • The WSN technology provide the best of the last two technologies so that transmission can happen without human intervention : • sensor node have accurate positioning information as GPS. • RF transceiver is used to transmit data at the desired intervals as High Frequency Radio telemetry. • WSN is consisted of sensor nodes, relay nodes, and the base station. • Cellular networks can also be used considering the difficulty of achieving the necessary radio range coverage. • By using the RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator), the trilateration method can be used to accurately locate the turtle.

7. The Main Achievements(cont.) • The WSN also can facilitate the mobility of the network, which is normal when tracking the turtles. • Turtles’ movements will cause a handover to occur between different clusters. • The sensor nodes will be operated using Zigbee topology, an easy, low-cost, power-friendly flexible implementations technology. • the SQ-SEN-200 omnidirectional tilt and vibration sensor from SignalQuest is used to detect turtles. • Pressure, temperature and humidity sensors are installed in base sensor unit.

8. The operation • WSN sensor transmit data to the distributed relay nodes which transmit it to the base station. • The base station use cellular networks or satellites to transmit the data to the end user, where web-based applications are provided. • Users can dynamically configure the information of interest on the web application ,also can locate the real time position of the turtle. • The power boosted gateway collect the sensed data and transmit to an authenticated server station using satellite communication. • Collected data will be stored in the database server, which will serve the users’ web interfaced queries.

9. Pros of WSN over the existing technology • Have greater resolution both in time and space. • Allow researchers to act rapidly according to the flow of data. • Researchers can collect new types of data and make new insights in processes. • The numbers and location of sensors can be chosen ,optimized or changed. • Sensing parameters  can be remotely changed/ modified (e.g.,  frequency of sensing, data rate, type of  data, sensing features, etc.). • the system is fault-tolerant. Any  failure can be detected in real time. • Observing under extreme conditions

10. The Challenges • GPS & RF signals would be difficult to track while the turtles are under water. Hence, the tracking & transmission is done opportunistically, when the transceivers & antennas are exposed out of water. • Battery life is the biggest challenge. So, careful design & rigorous testing is involved to ensure the desired lifetime for the sensor node can be achieved. • the scenario of node failure is unacceptable because tracking each turtle is important. • Minimizing the power consumption. So, the protocols used for RF communication have to be carefully chosen to ensure data is transmitted accurately & in a timely manner.

11. Pictures • The WSN technology

12. The currently used technology

13. Types of sensors can be used in the sensor node

14. Innovation • Existing technologies requires that biologists make repeated visits to a site to track turtles with handheld receivers which provide location information for one turtle only, and for a given point in time. • But with The WSN, It will require only one site visit to install the WSN infrastructure and attach sensors to turtles. Also, enablea significant increase in the number of turtles to be monitored. • Biologists and recovery teams will have real-time access via Internet to data without costly field visits and without negatively impacting the turtles. • The web portal will allow the display of system characteristics such as battery power levels, sensor distributions, and transmission ranges, allowing failure or malfunction in the system to be detected quickly.