Celium technology - Predator Free NZ

Give voice to your landscape
Use Celium to help enhance the biodiversity
of your region
Easy and affordable, wide scale pest control
While landowners, government agencies and communities are passionate about enhancing
the biodiversity of their regions, the disproportionate investment in labour resources required
to control invasive pests has been a huge barrier. Until now.
Celium technology is transforming wide scale
predator pest management in rural and remote areas
by enabling traps to be monitored remotely. This low
power, long range wireless network opens up new,
safer and more cost-effective ways of monitoring
and servicing control devices in the landscape.
The positive step-change impact is demonstrated by
Auckland Council’s Kōkako Recovery Project where
Celium has recently been deployed. Checking the
project’s traps currently takes 900 volunteer hours
each year. With Celium in place, this could decrease
by 50-70%*. Or, for the same investment in labour
each year, Celium could enable a 200-300% increase
in the number of traps able to be serviced.
In a nutshell, Celium saves significant time and
resource. It enables conservation projects to go big
and get more people involved and engaged with
biodiversity enhancement efforts.
The Celium Platform - Wireless Sensor Network and Applications
PEST
TRAPS
SATELLITE
WILDLIFE
MONITORING
CLIMATE
STATIONS
or
BEEHIVES
ES SERVER
CELLULAR NETWORK
METERING
+ OTHER OPTIONS
MOBILE
ADMINISTRATION
SMART DEVICE
PC
Example Celium applications
Encounter Solutions
hub site
Celium is a unique low power wireless sensor network
designed with wide scale wildlife management
applications in mind. Celium consists of an array of
communication devices, called ‘nodes’, which are
equipped with sensors. The sensors are designed to
monitor parameters (for example the status of a trap)
which the nodes then communicate to a base station,
or ‘hub’. The Celium hubs then transmit the resulting
data via satellite to secure cloud servers. After
processing, the data is delivered to users through
a variety of channels. These include the Encounter
Solutions web portal, email and mobile applications
Backhaul
Delivery
running on smart devices such as smartphones and
tablets. Celium is ideal for connecting and remotely
monitoring and controlling numerous devices in rural
and remote landscapes. The applications are myriad
and include such things as pest animal traps, wildlife
monitoring, climate/agriculture instrumentation,
metering, security systems and infrastructure
monitoring. Celium brings the ‘Internet of Things’
to rural and remote landscapes, thereby enabling
governments, landowners, rural businesses and
communities to optimise the way they manage
natural resources.
Key benefits of the Celium network
Long range - Designed for deployment over large
areas of rural and remote land, even in rugged
conditions, Celium can send data over very long
distances. In fact Encounter Solutions has validated
communications over distances in excess of 50
kilometres with its standard nodes (see right for an
appreciation of the scale). This is more than double
the distance described as ‘long range’ by some other
Low-Power-Wide-Area-Network systems that operate
at radio frequencies above 800-MHz. In addition to
communicating over long distances, Celium also
delivers remarkable non line-of-sight performance,
across hilly topography and through dense, wet
vegetation (see example below).
Hub
50 km range
Celium’s range in line-of-sight conditions has been recorded at
over 50 kilometres. This example shows a Celium deployment in
Auckland, New Zealand, with range rings out to 50 kilometres for
an appreciation of scale.
Node
2.4 km
The above image shows a successful Celium deployment communicating in non line-of-sight conditions over steep and forested topography.
The indicated node is located 2.4 kilometres away from the hub site. This example is from Mahia, New Zealand.
Low power - Celium requires very little power to
run and complex high power radio equipment is
not needed. This makes it readily portable, fast to
deploy and enables sensor nodes to operate on
inexpensive AA batteries for several years. Battery
lifetime is influenced by a range of factors including
the frequency and duration of the transmissions,
the amount of data to be sent and the quality of
service. However, because of Celium’s excellent long
range performance, simple power efficient network
configurations can be used to extract long
operational lifetimes from batteries.
Reduced cost - Celium is capable of delivering
significant benefit-to-cost ratios to pest trapping
programmes carried out over large areas. This is
because these operations are labour intensive and
research based on real world data indicates that
wireless technology like Celium could save up to
50-70%* of these operational costs. Analysis of
trapping programme data from New Zealand Regional
Councils that Encounters Solutions is already working
with suggests that these operational savings may
even exceed 80% in some circumstances.
Flexible – Designed to be flexible, Celium hubs have
been installed on and in buildings, on fence posts and
even in trees. Celium nodes can be connected to and
monitor many different devices and a wide variety
of assets. They even have multiple ways for users to
interact with them. Celium works indoors and outside,
in urban centres and on islands. As a result, the
potential applications are simply too numerous to list.
Proven – Celium has already been installed on
islands, in forests, around lakes and wetlands, in
coastal areas, over steep topography, amongst stock
on productive farmland and in urban areas. As at
February 2016, New Zealand Celium installations have
transmitted over 40,000 messages associated with
trapping networks. In the process, Celium messages
have travelled more than 113,000 km across remote
and rural landscapes.
* Jones C, Warburton B, Carver J, Carver D 2015. Potential
applications of wireless sensor networks for wildlife trapping and
monitoring programs. Wildlife Society Bulletin 39: 341–348.
Celium field equipment
Celium nodes
Nodes are wireless communication devices that are
equipped with, or connected to, sensors. Celium custom
designed nodes run on AA batteries, are able to perform
a wide variety of functions and monitor a range of different
parameters and assets. Though high performance devices,
they are tough enough to withstand demanding conditions.
Celium nodes have their own built-in low power user
interface, however, for administration purposes and ease
of interaction, mobile devices can wirelessly connect to
them as well.
Celium hubs
Hubs are responsible for monitoring and administering
the nodes within their jurisdictions. Celium hubs onforward acquired data to Encounter Solutions’ cloud
servers principally via satellite. The hubs are lightweight
and designed so they can be carried and installed by one
person. Their batteries are kept charged using solar energy.
Celium hubs are equipped with both wired and wireless
(Bluetooth) connectivity for administration and data
download purposes.
Celium node
Celium hub site
Why Celium is the best choice for
rural and remote landscapes
Radio signals suffer less loss and wrap around
hills and obstacles better at lower frequencies.
Celium is optimised to operate at 160-MHz
in New Zealand and in the Multi-Use Radio
Service channels (151 – 154-MHz) in the US.
Alternative low power coded wideband or
spread spectrum based networks generally
operate in higher spectrum ranges such as the
unlicensed ISM band of 868-MHz or the 2.4-GHz
band. Additionally, Celium uses market leading,
narrowband technology to deliver highly efficient,
low data rate communications. This provides
several advantages over coded wideband based
systems. This combination of narrowband
technology and a lower operating frequency
means Celium can deliver superior range over
systems operating at higher frequencies for the
equivalent power consumption. Especially in
undulating topography, through dense vegetation
and in wet weather conditions.
Encounter Solutions enables governments,
landowners, rural businesses and communities
to optimise the way they manage natural
resources by delivering affordable wireless
sensor networks and applications across rural
and remote landscapes.
“Farmers don’t have a lot of time to
continually check bait stations and
traps so using this technology is
going to make a big difference.
We’re going to see a bird paradise.”
Bruce Wills - Director,
Queen Elizabeth II National Trust
former Federated Farmers President
“In most cases, the cost of labour
for pest trapping is 40-70% of the
total cost of an operation. Wireless
technology will reduce this labour
cost by up to 50-80% depending on
the control scenario.”
Campbell Leckie - Land Services Manager,
Hawkes Bay Regional Council
Simon Croft / Director
Encounter Solutions Ltd
+64 21 477 743
simon@encountersolutions.co.nz
www.encountersolutions.co.nz