Birdwatching from afar: Amazing new AI-enabled camera system to target specific behaviors

Bio-logging is a technique involving the mounting of small lightweight video cameras and/or other data-gathering devices onto the bodies of wild animals. The systems then allow researchers to observe various aspects of that animal's life, such as its behaviors and social interactions, with minimal disturbance. However, the considerable battery life required for these high-cost bio-logging systems has proven limiting so far. "Since bio-loggers attached to small animals have to be small and lightweight, they have short runtimes and it was therefore difficult to record interesting infrequent behaviors," explains study corresponding author Takuya Maekawa. "We have developed a new AI-equipped bio-logging device that allows us to automatically detect and record the specific target behaviors of interest based on data from low-cost sensors such as accelerometers and geographic positioning systems (GPS)."