SBIR-STTR Award

In response to this call, Securics, Inc. proposes an automated identification and tracking various desert fauna and humans. In a remote environment the need for positive visual identification of non-cooperative, long distance fauna is essential to track local species in an area to determine their location and health. In addition to the inherent challenges of long distance identification, the remote location adds additional challenges of operating with very low power, as it will often need to be battery or solar powered, lightweight for mobility and support remote access all while minimizing the environmental footprint and disturbance to the surrounding flora and fauna. Securics is uniquely positioned to address this problem, leveraging the team’s recent work on long range facial detection and with Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) enhanced systems for face biometrics. Protecting the environment is important and we take this responsibility seriously; by providing decades of facial detection and object recognition experience we can innovatively and effectively track, recognize and detect threatened and endangered fauna, thereby helping to insure their survival. We propose an environmentally sound, portable and automated multi-spectral system to measure and predict current and future locations of ground targets of interest specifically, threatened and endangered fauna and their predators.

Benefit:
In response to this call, Securics, Inc. proposes an automated identification and tracking various desert fauna and humans. In a remote environment the need for positive visual identification of non-cooperative, long distance fauna is essential to track local species in an area to determine their location and health. In addition to the inherent challenges of long distance identification, the remote location adds additional challenges of operating with very low power, as it will often need to be battery or solar powered, lightweight for mobility and support remote access all while minimizing the environmental footprint and disturbance to the surrounding flora and fauna. Securics is uniquely positioned to address this problem, leveraging the team’s recent work on long range facial detection and with Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) enhanced systems for face biometrics. Protecting the environment is important and we take this responsibility seriously; by providing decades of facial detection and object recognition experience we can innovatively and effectively track, recognize and detect threatened and endangered fauna, thereby helping to insure their survival. We propose an environmentally sound, portable and automated multi-spectral system to measure and predict current and future locations of ground targets of interest specifically, threatened and endangered fauna and their predators.

Keywords:
Desert Tortoise, Low Light Fauna Detection, Ndi, Identification, Detection, Mojave Ground Squirrel, Coyote, Ravens, Critical Habitat, Federally Threatened Species

This Phase II effort will significantly expand upon our novel animal tracking and recognition work accomplished during Phase I, culminating in the development and construction of two different types of system prototypes. Part I of the Base effort will focus on enhancing the algorithms that we explored in Phase I, leading to a complete end-to-end software pipeline that will be evaluated on laboratory test data. Part II of the Base effort will focus on the construction of an economical SmartPhone based prototype, including custom optics, ruggedized housing, and a self-contained power system, with physical elements developed by our partner ICx Technologies. This prototype will be evaluated in the field by our team of biologists led by Dr. Phil Leitner. Our Option effort will focus on the construction of a more traditional military oriented field system based on the TRSS Imager-II platform from our partner Level 3 Communications. At the conclusion of Phase II, the Edwards Air Force Base Environmental Management team will have an animal monitoring capability well beyond any that exists today.

Benefit:
The immediate benefit for the DoD is clear – this effort will produce an animal monitoring capability that is able to detect, track and recognize threatened and endangered species at stand-off ranges that do not interfere with the habitat of the target creatures. This valuable tool can be used for proper land management and to ensure compliance with federal and state laws protecting certain species. Beyond this immediate use, several important commercial areas exist. Biologists can utilize this system for large-scale fieldwork – its low price making it attractive to academics with limited budgets. In the broader surveillance space, the ability to classify targets is of much interest to solutions providers, and brings this technology to broad markets far removed from the study of animals.

Keywords:
Desert Tortoise; Mohave Ground Squirrel; Federally Threatened Species; Sensors, Computer Vision, Machine Learning