Iot-enabled smart elephant detection system for combating human elephant conflict

Abstract

Human elephant conflict has become one of major and serious problems for many countries in Asia and Africa. The conflict between humans and elephants have resulted in loss of human life and limbs as well as death of many elephants in these countries. The main reason for the escalation of this conflict is the loss of habitat of elephants that have been traditionally used by the animals for centuries. In recent times, humans have encroached into these areas for various reasons including looking for new lands for cultivation and living. Electric fences are commonly used world over to deter elephants from coming into villages and farmlands. Though, electric fences could effectively separate the animals from people, the elephants are found to enter the villages after breaking these fences. Once the fence is broken, there is no effective security as the elephants can enter and roam freely wherever it wants. In this paper, the author presents design and prototype implementation of smart elephant detection system that can alert people when an elephant approaches human settlements. The system was tested under limited laboratory environments and found that the concept is working and can be extended after a fully-fledged field testing.