HUTAN - Hearing, Understanding, Tracking & Alerting Node

Disclaimer

Project Motivation

Indonesia, home to the third-largest tropical rainforest in the world, holds an extraordinary level of biodiversity and is often referred to as one of the planet’s lungs. Despite this critical ecological role, the country continues to face severe deforestation driven by land-use change and unsustainable human activities. Recent events have made the consequences of this environmental degradation impossible to ignore. In late November and December 2025, several regions across Sumatra, one of Indonesia’s major islands, were struck by devastating flash floods that caused extensive material losses, destroyed homes, and tragically claimed many lives.

What became especially alarming was the sheer volume of large timber logs carried by the floodwaters into residential areas. Their presence was a clear indicator of massive illegal logging occurring upstream, revealing deep structural failures in forest protection and monitoring systems. These incidents highlight an urgent need for smarter, earlier, and more reliable environmental threat detection.

This is not just an environmental issue but a systemic crisis indicating that Indonesia's forest protection mechanisms are failing. It is an extremely urgent problem that must be addressed now, not only for our present safety and resilience but also for the future of our children. We need a new breakthrough, a solution capable of responding to this crisis in a meaningful and sustainable way.

Problem Statement

Illegal logging continues to accelerate forest degradation in Indonesia, yet early detection remains extremely challenging due to the remoteness, scale, and harsh environmental conditions of the affected regions. A reliable, low-power, real-time monitoring system is required to sense abnormal activities deep inside the forest, withstand natural conditions, and deliver actionable alerts instantly. To achieve this, the system must leverage sensor fusion and Edge AI to accurately identify logging events while operating independently in energy-limited environments.

This project addresses several key questions:

• How can illegal logging activities be detected reliably in remote forest environments?
• How can the system operate with low energy consumption despite being deployed in areas with minimal power sources?
• How can the hardware remain durable and resilient against rain, humidity, heat, wildlife interaction, and other environmental challenges?
• How can the system deliver real-time alerts and notifications to responders or authorities?
• How can sensor fusion be used to enhance detection accuracy and reduce false positives?
• How can Edge AI be optimized to recognize illegal logging patterns based on acoustic and vibration signatures directly on the device?

System Overview

HUTAN, which means forest in Indonesia,is an integrated edge-AI monitoring platform designed to detect illegal logging activities in remote forest environments. The system combines multiple sensing modalities, including audio, vibration, gas concentration, and visual inputs, to capture the unique signatures associated with tree-cutting activities.

These sensors operate simultaneously, enabling cross-validated detection through sensor fusion. At the hardware level, the Arduino Uno Q's hybrid architecture allows real-time signal acquisition on the MCU while running computationally intensive Edge Impulse models on the MPU. The MCU continuously monitors microphone input for chainsaw-like acoustic patterns, vibration sensors for mechanical shock consistent with tree felling, and environmental sensors for smoke or particulate abnormalities. When anomalies are detected, the MCU triggers the MPU to run image classification or audio inference locally using Edge Impulse-optimized models.

All processing takes place on the device, ensuring low-latency operation and eliminating reliance on cloud connectivity. Once suspicious activity is confirmed, the system sends real-time notifications through its integrated web dashboard or communication module. By combining multi-sensor fusion, hybrid processing, and edge-AI inference, HUTAN provides a resilient, low-power, and autonomous monitoring solution capable of protecting forest ecosystems from illegal logging and reducing the environmental consequences that follow deforestation.

Sensor Testing

Data Acquisition

Edge Impulse Model Design

Sensor Fusion Strategy

Threat Tracking

Enclosure & Mechanical Design

Web and Notification Development

Field Deployment

System Testing

Potential Impact

HUTAN system has the potential to deliver substantial environmental, social, and long-term ecological benefits across regions threatened by illegal logging. By enabling early detection of unauthorized forest-clearing activities, HUTAN can significantly slow deforestation rates and enhance the capacity of authorities to intervene before irreversible damage occurs. Its autonomous, real-time alerting mechanism helps protect critical rainforest ecosystems, preserve biodiversity, and maintain natural hydrological functions that reduce the severity of floods and landslides.

Because HUTAN operates fully on edge AI without external connectivity requirements, it remains reliable in remote and rural areas where traditional monitoring systems fail. This ensures continuous long-term surveillance, enabling conservation teams, NGOs, and community patrols to monitor large forest areas more efficiently and sustainably. The reduced environmental degradation also benefits local communities by lowering the risk of disasters, such as the recent severe floods in Sumatra, linked to deforestation and weakened watershed stability.

In a broader context, HUTAN directly supports several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It contributes to SDG 13 (Climate Action) by helping mitigate greenhouse gas emissions resulting from forest loss. It reinforces SDG 15 (Life on Land) through enhanced protection of terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity. By preventing disasters and sustaining natural resources, it indirectly supports SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) by maintaining watershed health. Additionally, by providing actionable, real-time environmental intelligence, HUTAN strengthens evidence-based governance aligned with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).

Ultimately, widespread deployment of HUTAN can become a transformative technological force in safeguarding Indonesia’s rainforests—one of the world’s most vital ecological assets—ensuring their preservation for future generations and helping address the global climate crisis through smarter, proactive environmental monitoring.

Future Improvement

Closing