Low-Cost Conservation Technology

We are currently witnessing an ongoing mass extinction. This Anthropocene extinction is mainly caused by human activities that either directly decimate populations (e.g. over fishing and over hunting) or destroy their habitats (e.g. deforestation and pollution). Recently, human-induced climate change has additionally sped up habitat destruction, which is leading to an even greater loss of biodiversity. We hope to address this problem by providing better technology to conservation biologists. This should speed up and improve their investigations which will allow for more effective policy decisions.

Our goal is to foster open development of conservation technology. We expect that this will lead to faster progress and lower end-product costs. To do so, we will be making use of low-volume manufacturing, low-power microcontrollers and cloud processing. As a first step, we want to apply these ideas to the development of a GPS receiver for wildlife tracking.

This GPS receiver will use a snapshot method, which means that it only records milliseconds of data at regular intervals. This leads to very low power consumption, which allows for smaller batteries, which in turn means less obtrusive tracking devices. Apart from the technical challenge of building the software and hardware, there is also the problem of making the solution scalable so that it can be accessible to researchers around the world. Some work has already been done on both the algorithms and the electronics for this approach. However, there currently exists no complete open-source solution stack and, more importantly, no affordable end-product. This is what conservation biologists will need to do large-scale GPS tracking.

This project relates to the following EPSRC's research areas: sensors and instrumentation, digital signal processing.

AIMS's impact will be felt across domains of acute need within the UK. We expect AIMS to benefit: UK economic performance, through start-up creation; existing UK firms, both through research and addressing skills needs; UK health, by contributing to cancer research, and quality of life, through the delivery of autonomous vehicles; UK public understanding of and policy related to the transformational societal change engendered by autonomous systems.

Autonomous systems are acknowledged by essentially all stakeholders as important to the future UK economy. PwC claim that there is a £232 billion opportunity offered by AI to the UK economy by 2030 (10% of GDP). AIMS has an excellent track record of leadership in spinout creation, and will continue to foster the commercial projects of its students, through the provision of training in IP, licensing and entrepreneurship. With the help of Oxford Science Innovation (investment fund) and Oxford University Innovation (technology transfer office), student projects will be evaluated for commercial potential.

AIMS will also concretely contribute to UK economic competitiveness by meeting the UK's needs for experts in autonomous systems. To meet this need, AIMS will train cohorts with advanced skills that span the breadth of AI, machine learning, robotics, verification and sensor systems. The relevance of the training to the needs of industry will be ensured by the industrial partnerships at the heart of AIMS. These partnerships will also ensure that AIMS will produce research that directly targets UK industrial needs. Our partners span a wide range of UK sectors, including energy, transport, infrastructure, factory automation, finance, health, space and other extreme environments.

The autonomous systems that AIMS will enable also offer the prospect of epochal change in the UK's quality of life and health. As put by former Digital Secretary Matt Hancock, "whether it's improving travel, making banking easier or helping people live longer, AI is already revolutionising our economy and our society." AIMS will help to realise this potential through its delivery of trained experts and targeted research. In particular, two of the four Grand Challenge missions in the UK Industrial Strategy highlight the positive societal impact underpinned by autonomous systems. The "Artificial Intelligence and data" challenge has as its mission to "Use data, Artificial Intelligence and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases by 2030". To this mission, AIMS will contribute the outputs of its research pillar on cancer research. The "Future of mobility" challenge highlights the importance the autonomous vehicles will have in making transport "safer, cleaner and better connected." To this challenge, AIMS offers the world-leading research of its robotic systems research pillar.

AIMS will further promote the positive realisation of autonomous technologies through direct influence on policy. The world-leading academics amongst AIMS's supervisory pool are well-connected to policy formation e.g. Prof Osborne serving as a Commissioner on the Independent Commission on the Future of Work. Further, Dr Dan Mawson, Head of the Economy Unit; Economy and Strategic Analysis Team at BEIS will serve as an advisor to AIMS, ensuring bidirectional influence between policy objectives and AIMS research and training.

Broad understanding of autonomous systems is crucial in making a society robust to the transformations they will engender. AIMS will foster such understanding through its provision of opportunities for AIMS students to directly engage with the public. Given the broad societal importance of getting autonomous systems right, AIMS will deliver core training on the ethical, governance, economic and societal implications of autonomous systems.