I’m looking for a cost effective solution to detect wild dogs crossing stock grids in Western QLD. I’ve been using PIR sensors connected to sirens to scare the dogs from crossing, but finding lots of false triggers with sensor and siren failure.
I need something that will reduce false triggers (vegetation), be durable in harsh environments, and will work for 10m. I’ve got solar, battery and 12v controllers all in situ driving the PIR set up at 7 locations at present.
Any suggestions on what might be a good product or alternative that fits within my parameters?
A radar detection system sounds like the way to go as light or ultrasonic based detection techniques such as transducers creating light/sound gates or PIR detection will detect just about any object or movement. I’ve linked an example module below, although the problems you’re going to run into are noise (from ambient microwaves, invalid reflections, signal noise) and the scale of the dogs that you’re trying to detect. Typically these radar systems are designed to detect adult humans bodies at ~10m, a small to medium sized wild dog may be a little too small to give accurate reflections.
However, I’d recommend also taking a look at image recognition. A few cameras with microcontrollers running image recognition programs to detect wild dogs in live video feeds may also work quite nicely depending on the environment.
It’s a 5V digital Serial interface to configure it, you’ll likely need to use a microcontroller to interpret and interact with the module depending on which one you go with, the one I linked was just the best priced for 10m reflections with noise cancelling I could find. Once configured and running, the O or Output pin will trigger 5V high when a change in reflections is detected. If you need 3V, you may need to use a different module, or you can use a logic level converter or 3V regulator.
There’s a tutorial on how to use it on DFRobot’s site below. Most sensor modules will be interacted with via Serial depending on what you go with:
Yes, for this module it is software defined, you can call a function from the provided C (well ArduScript) library DFRobot_Microwave_Radar_Module called setSensitivity although on others there may be a potentiometer that you can adjust
Current will also be a consideration in driving your SSR, it may be best to use an Arduino, ESP32 or similar to communicate with your sensor/s, and then use that to output a high signal to trigger your SSR (that way you can also program in your own logic and noise correction if needs be as well)
