🦆 AI Saves Migratory Birds
Wind is an important source of renewable energy in the US and Europe. The EU plans to increase its use sixfold by 2030. However, offshore wind turbines cause an estimated 4.5 million bird deaths each year. Raptor birds usually look downwards rather than forwards when flying in search of prey and therefore often get caught in the turbines’ spinning blades. The death of birds, in turn, damages local ecosystems and agriculture.
Norwegian startup Spoor, which recently raised a $4 million seed round from investors, created an artificial intelligence-based technology that will help save hundreds of thousands of birds.
💡 How It Works
Cameras on wind turbines detect birds around the clock. The AI-powered bird-tracking technology counts them, analyzes their trajectories, and estimates the risks of collisions with the blades using 3D models.
The birds fly at a speed of about 10 m/s. Spoor software can detect and track birds up to 2 km away using video. The turbine receives a signal and can slow down to two revolutions per minute in 20-40 seconds, becoming safe for the birds.
👍 Why It Is Useful?
👍 Hundreds of thousands of birds will be saved!
👍 The bird migration dataset can help wind farms slow down or even stop turbines in real-time when avian activity is expected to increase.
👍 Companies will be able to find and monitor safer places to build wind farms by assessing risks to the local avian populations, especially endangered bird species.
#startup @hiaimediaen
Wind is an important source of renewable energy in the US and Europe. The EU plans to increase its use sixfold by 2030. However, offshore wind turbines cause an estimated 4.5 million bird deaths each year. Raptor birds usually look downwards rather than forwards when flying in search of prey and therefore often get caught in the turbines’ spinning blades. The death of birds, in turn, damages local ecosystems and agriculture.
Norwegian startup Spoor, which recently raised a $4 million seed round from investors, created an artificial intelligence-based technology that will help save hundreds of thousands of birds.
💡 How It Works
Cameras on wind turbines detect birds around the clock. The AI-powered bird-tracking technology counts them, analyzes their trajectories, and estimates the risks of collisions with the blades using 3D models.
The birds fly at a speed of about 10 m/s. Spoor software can detect and track birds up to 2 km away using video. The turbine receives a signal and can slow down to two revolutions per minute in 20-40 seconds, becoming safe for the birds.
Wind farms are quite huge, many hundreds of square kilometers, and trying to use computer vision to basically monitor the air is an interesting technology challenge. We needed to create a scalable technology that can detect birds. It’s kind of a novel use of computer vision and our own data pipeline.
Ask Helseth, co-founder and CEO of Spoor
👍 Why It Is Useful?
👍 Hundreds of thousands of birds will be saved!
👍 The bird migration dataset can help wind farms slow down or even stop turbines in real-time when avian activity is expected to increase.
👍 Companies will be able to find and monitor safer places to build wind farms by assessing risks to the local avian populations, especially endangered bird species.
#startup @hiaimediaen