Microsoft’s new open-source AI solution will beam wildlife data from remote corners of the world

Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab this morning unveiled a new open-source project and AI-powered edge computing device designed to improve biodiversity monitoring, with the goal of helping outside researchers better understand the planet.

It’s called Project SPARROW, for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. It’s the first project of its kind from the lab, which is part of Microsoft Philanthropies, separate from the company’s product groups.

The project includes blueprints for a solar-powered device equipped with advanced sensors, including camera traps and acoustic monitors. Microsoft says this enables SPARROW to operate autonomously with minimal environmental impact. Researchers will be able to reprogram the devices remotely, for example.

Microsoft says it will open-source all aspects of SPARROW, including software, hardware plans, and 3D-printable designs, so researchers, NGOs and scientists can build, deploy, and adapt their own SPARROW devices.

SPARROW uses onboard AI to filter data collected from sensors like cameras and acoustic monitors. Only essential data will be transmitted via satellite, preserving bandwidth and energy consumed by those transmissions.

“If this works, and I hope it will, and it gets adopted, it will change the way [scientists] work,” said Juan Lavista Ferres, the chief scientist and director of the AI for Good Lab, in an interview this week. “Suddenly, you will have all these sensors across the world, and they will be able to to understand how is the world changing.”

In addition to making the project open-source, he said, Microsoft will ensure that the data is owned by the participating researchers, not by the company. At the same time, Microsoft is encouraging researchers to share the data collected on Sparrow devices with others, and it’s offering to help them create and distribute open data sets.

He said the project is an outgrowth of more than five years of work between the AI for Good Lab and researchers who collect and analyze data about endangered wildlife and ecosystems around the world.

Previously, Microsoft was helping largely with the analysis, but it realized that the collection could also benefit from technology.

Microsoft plans to deploy its own initial SPARROW devices to sites in North and South America over the next few months, to test and refine the solution. Its goal is to have devices on every continent by the end of 2025.

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