Developing a Remote Digital Wildlife Camera Triggered by Spatially Deployed Infrared Sensors

This paper describes the design, construction, and operation of a system devised to capture images of wildlife with a full 360 degrees of view. The system uses infrared detection in a circular configuration to detect movement of heat signatures and then relays that information to a base station via short distance radios. The base station uses a microcontroller to take this information and turn a camera using a stepper motor. When the camera is in the correct position it is triggered to take a picture. Images are stored on an internal SD Card, and are then transferred to a remote location via long distance radios where a user can view captured images without manually retrieving them. KeywordsWireless Sensor Network, Stepper Motor, 8051 Microprocessor, ePIR Sensor, XBee Radio