Frequently Asked Questions

 

we need to protect a very large area won’t that require a large number of sensors?

No, In fact the minimum number of TrailGuards is 1. And it is the first unit that will will give you your maximum results – bcause you will have chosen to put it on a the trail that you know is most used by poachers. A trail you know that – given enough time – poachers will eventually use – you just don’t know when. You can then add more TrailGuards incrementally along other trails using the same criterion. It depends of course on the protected area – the ease of access and the number of threats surrounding it but we believe that the “situational awareness” of most protected areas could be improved dramatically with less than a dozzen units. It is important that all inhabitants – poachers and potential poachers are made aware that there are hidden boxes recording and reporting their activities – and it is important that they know that TrailGuards have been deployed along trails – but not which trails. Then in a potetial poacher’s mind they are along every trail and behind every tree. Thus, actually protecting some trails, you will have effectively protected trails that you didn’t deploy units along

 

how long will the batteries last and what maintianance is required?

A year or more should be achivalble in most cases with reasonable sized batteries

 

How can we insure that the alarm message get to the dispatcher.

It is of no use to detect in real-time human intrusion unless that information can be reliably and immedialtely delivered to the hands of a person who is able to dispatch a rapid-response team. Wildland Security realizes that if any link in the chain is broken, the alarm will fail, and the poacher will go undetected. So the system is designed to be self-testing so as to detect – and be able to correct – any problems before a real poaching incident occurs.

For example, because no reports from a TrailGuard unit does not necessarily mean no poachers have passed – the unit could have failed. So periodic “state-of-health” messages are scheduled to be transmitted from each unit.  Failure to receive such a message would indicate the unit had failed and the park would be notified that it would have to replace the unit promptly. With each state-of-health message, parameters such as battery voltage and the number of motion detection events since the last state-of-health message would be sent. For TrailGuard units with a camera, a picture would be taken and transmitted which would then be examined to insure nothing had happend to obscure its field of view.

 

What are the factors to consider in using Gateway (should I use gateways or stand-alone units?)

A gateway is the means to share  the cost of one internet communication device among possibly many TrailGuard units. Similar in concept to your getting WiFi using an access point – a kind of  ”Starbucks in-the-canopy” for TrailGuards.

The sole reason one would consider using gateways is a possible overall cost reduction. Having a communciation device at each TrailGuard unit makes each unit completly autonomous and simplifies installation and maintenance.

GSM cellular modems are cheap and would always be used individualy with each TrailGuard, one-on-one. With satellite modems it could, on a site dependent basis, pay to share one satellite modem with numerous TrailGuard units on the ground. Depending on the terrain and vegetation cover, one gateway could provide service to any number of TrailGuards in a multi-kilometer radius. The saving due to sharing a gateway is offset by the communication hardware required to establish the TrailGuard-to-gateway link as well as the the increased effort of installation and maintanance.

Wildland Security will assist you in choosing the communication system that best meets your unique requirements.

 

We are located x, will the Trailguard system work there?

 

TrailGuards can be used at any location on the planet, the communincation system will be chosen to take advantage of whatever is the most cost effective for a particular loaction. The phyiscal design of the the TrailGuard units is modular. The functionallity the of the units is identical whether, for example, satellite or cellular communication systems are used. It is just plugging in the appropriate communication module. This insures against obselence. As new communication technology is developed or better, less expensive communiaction infrastructure becomes available in your area, TrailGuards will be able to take advantage of it.

Environmentally, TrailGuards are manufactured with componets permitting operation to temperatures as low as -40C.

 

 

 

How would we know if a TrailGuard unit had failed?

 

Since recieving no reports from a unit could either mean that there had been no detected human intrusions – or the unit had failed and was unable to transmit messages, periodic “state-of-health” messages are transmitted to the server indicating the operational status. These mesages include important data such as battery level, date and message ID of last transmitted alarm, and a current camera image. The image would verify that operation of the camera and indicate if anything was obstructing the field-of-view – such as a growing vegetation. Should anything be detected that would indicate servicing would be required messages would be sent to designated persons – requiring an acknowledgement – and there would be follow-up tests performed to insure that operational status has been restored to prevent any missed intrusions.

There is also the crucial communication link from the internet server in the US back to park headquarters from which a patrol would be dispatched. It must be up 24/7 and be able to reach a human authorized to dispatch a patrol at any time. The device, the “HQ unit” in the park headquarters would have its own communication system, independent of any other communication system the park might use and be required to be powered at all times. The HQ unit would be battery backup and continuously  monitoring it operational status as well as its full-time internet link (a VPN or “virtual private network” ) . The internet connection to the park headquarters  is monitored continuously from the web server in the US and if the link to the headquarters unit every fails the web server will notify the the country office that there is a communication  failure to such-and-such park so that it can be corrected before the network link is needed to transmit a real alarm. Since manpower will always be a scarce commodity and alarms may arrive anytime day or night,  no one is required to be present at the HQ unit. Incoming alarm messages will be received automatically and immediately trigger an audible alarm – which would be heard over a wide area of the camp. A person with the proper authorization would then have to enter an authorization code, acknowledging receipt of the alarm. If the US-based web -server did not receive an acknowledgment within a certain time, the sever would send a report to the country office indicating that a poaching event had occurred but persons in the effected park were unreachable.

There are other proceedures in place to insure every link of the commuication chain remain intact and will be available as a separate document from Wildland Security.

See also

 

 

 

We have too few rangers and/or lack means of transport so that even if we received immediate photographic evidence of poachers entering an area, we could not get a force to that area fast enough. What good would TrailGuards be to us?

TrailGuards may help you get those need resources from your funders. You will get “photographic proof” of the degree of poaching in an area and you can then make a hard case to funders saying “Our TrailGurads are giving us these real-time detections of poachers. Here are the pictures.  But we have no way of getting there quickly enough to apprehend the poachers. If we had a Land Cruiser (or if we had a satellite camp located in that area) we could get a rapid response team there in time to arrest the poachers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why use cameras and not simpler sensors like metal detectors that also allow discriminating between human intruders and other animals

 

cameras can provide unambiquecus, redily human-interpretable “actionable evidence beyond any reasonable doubt” information as to the nature of the intrusion – not achivable by non-imaging sensors. Thaey provide an indication of the “threat” – what kind of intruders – subsistance hunters – or well-armed militia – to headquaters in advance of sending out a rapid reaction team so they can better be prepared for the risks they will face. At best, non-imaging sensors can only provide an alarm indicating that humans had passed a point on a trail – they can not identify the person. Inspite of best effort of dispatched patrols, there will be cases where the patrol fails to intercept the intruders. The images taken by the cameras can potentialy be used for later arrest and processcution. However, Wildland Security does beleive that non-imaging sensors can play a role, in concert with camera-based sensors. Camera-sensors at the “front-line” -the early entry points – giving postive indentification of intrusion and then possibly non-imaging sensors located at key points further along into the protected area such as where a trail might branch providing updated information collaborating with the eariler photo id.

 

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Please contact us with any questions you might have. We would like to make this FAQ as informative as possible.