Sentinel Specification Sheet

The Sentinel connects to commercial camera traps to process captured images and transmit results of animal species detected by a neural network on-device. It includes a custom printed circuit board with a low-power microcontroller (Microchip SAM D21E) and an embedded computer with tensor processing unit (Google Coral SoM) for image processing. The circuit board also includes power management components, a camera trigger detection circuit, and microSD storage for processed image data. Communication modules may include cellular (Blues Wireless), LoRaWAN (Blues Wireless), or satellite (SpaceX) in addition to built-in WiFi. The circuit board is powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and enclosed in a weather-proof housing.

Product Description

  • Attach to any trail camera with a standard SD card slot

  • Run powerful customized on-board AI-models

  • Get insights out from nearly anywhere with customizable, modular communication options (satellite, cellular, LoRaWAN)

  • Long battery life enabled by customizable processing periods

Technical Specifications

Performance

  • Customizable Photo Processing Periods

    • Immediate processing

    • Photo count reached (every 10 photos, 30 photos, etc)

    • Set time period (every 6 hours, 24 hours, 3 days etc)

  • Battery Life

    • ~65-100 processing cycles per battery (e.g. 65 cycles*7 batteries / (24hrs in a day / 12 hour processing period) = 227.5 days estimated battery life)

  • Model Support

    • YOLOv5 (including MegaDetector v5)

    • EfficientDet

    • MobileNet

    • ResNet

    • FOMO (Edge Impulse)

  • Camera Support

    • Most commercial camera traps with a standard SD card slot

  • External Memory Support

    • MicroSD (up to 1 TB)

    • USB (up to 1 TB)

  • Power Consumption

    • Sleep: <1mA

    • Image Processing: 600mA-1A

    • Peak (for microseconds): 3A

Electronics

  • Google Coral SoM (System-on-Module)

    • NXP i.MX 8M SoC (quad Cortex-A53, Cortex-M4F)

    • Google Edge TPU coprocessor (4 TOPS (int8); 2 TOPS per watt)

    • 8GB eMMC flash storage

  • Microchip SAM D21E Microcontroller

  • Spypoint Cell-Link Cable

    • 512MB SD to USB interface

  • Communication Options

    • Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n/ac 2.4/5GHz)

    • Satellite (optional, SpaceX Swarm M138)

    • Cellular (optional, Blues Wireless Cellular Notecard with external SIM slot)

    • LoRaWAN (optional, Blues Wireless LoRa Notecard)

  • Power Options

    • (preferred) 2x 18650 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries

    • (optional) 5x 18650 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries

    • (optional) External solar-powered battery pack (note this replaces all 18650 batteries)

    • JST connector

    • Micro-USB

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