The AudioMoth Acoustic Monitoring Device Keeps Tabs on Wildlife

Open Acoustic Devices is a UK-based collaborative research group made up with researchers from the University of Southampton and Oxford, who design and develop open source acoustic hardware for monitoring biodiversity and the environment. The group’s AudioMoth is an acoustic sensor device created to detect audible and ultrasonic frequencies in the wild, making it an essential tool for conversationalists.

The AudioMoth allows researchers and conservationists to identify, track and monitor hard to spot wildlife, along with potential threats like gunshots produced by poachers or the sound of chainsaws in protected forests. The team has already successfully used the acoustic logger for multiple applications, including automating the search for an elusive insect species and listening for ultrasonic bat calls.

On the hardware end, the AudioMoth is built around an EFM32 Gecko SoC that packs an Arm Cortex-M3 processor with up to 16K of RAM and 128K of Flash. It also features an analog MEMS microphone and pre-amplifier with adjustable gain capable of recording uncompressed audio to SD card from 8k to 384k samples per second. Power is supplied by 3X AA batteries and uses an RTC that keeps track of time in UTC.

As for software, the AudioMoth uses its companion app, which lets you schedule recording periods, customize the gain and sample rates, as well as calculate the device’s approximate power lifespan in any given configuration.

Although the AudioMoth is currently available on LabMaker for $79, it can also be picked up via crowd purchasing on GroupGets for a lower price tag. (Round 6 just closed at over 700% funded so stay tuned for a new round once Round 6 fulfills.) In the meantime, Open Acoustic Devices has uploaded all the files, schematics, and code needed to assemble your own on their resource page.