When we think of Nepal, we tend to think of the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas, the crystal-clear still waters of its alpine lakes, or the huge expanse of its grasslands. What some of us may not realize is that in the Himalayan foothills, where the climate is much warmer and the landscape much greener, there lives a great diversity of wildlife, including the one-horned rhinoceros, the Asian elephant and the Bengal tiger. But unfortunately, these animals are under constant threat from poachers who hunt and kill them for their body parts. To stop the killing of these animals, battalions of soldiers and rangers are sent to protect Nepal's national parks, but that is not an easy task, because these soldiers have to patrol thousands of hectares of forests on foot or elephant backs. It is also risky for these soldiers when they get into gunfights with poachers, and therefore Nepal is always looking for new ways to help with protecting the forests and wildlife.
想到尼泊尔, 我们总是想到冰雪覆盖的 喜马拉雅山, 还有高山湖泊中水晶般透明而平静的湖水, 又或是那它广袤的草原。 但有些人也许没有意识到的是, 在喜马拉雅山山麓, 那里气候更加温暖, 有更多的绿地, 那里生活着种类繁多的野生动物, 包括独角犀、 亚洲象 和孟加拉虎。 但不幸的是,这些野生动物 一直以来都面临着偷猎者的威胁, 这些偷猎者为了获取它们身体上的某一部分 而捕杀它们。 为了阻止这些偷猎行为, 大量的士兵跟护林员 被派遣去保护尼泊尔的国家公园, 但这并不是一个轻松的任务, 因为这些士兵必须徒步 或者骑着大象 巡逻几千公顷的森林。 这也是一项危险的任务, 因为他们可能会与偷猎者交火, 所以,尼泊尔一直在寻找 保护森林与野生动物的 新方法。
Well recently, Nepal acquired a new tool in the fight against wildlife crime, and these are drones, or more specifically, conservation drones. For about a year now, my colleagues and I have been building drones for Nepal and training the park protection personnel on the use of these drones. Not only does a drone give you a bird's-eye view of the landscape, but it also allows you to capture detailed, high-resolution images of objects on the ground. This, for example, is a pair of rhinoceros taking a cooling bath on a hot summer day in the lowlands of Nepal. Now we believe that drones have tremendous potential, not only for combating wildlife crime, but also for monitoring the health of these wildlife populations.
最近,尼泊尔获得了一样新工具 用来对抗猎杀野生动物的罪行, 这就是无人飞机, 更确切地说,是环境保护无人机。 在大约一年的时间中,我和我的同事 一直在为尼泊尔制造无人机, 并培训公园保卫人员 如何使用这些无人机。 无人机并不仅仅 给你鸟瞰的视野, 它也可以捕捉到地面上细微的 高分辨率的物体的图像。 例如,图中,炎热的夏天, 一对犀牛正在尼泊尔的一处低地沼泽中 洗凉水澡。 我们相信,无人机具有 巨大的潜力, 不只是用来对抗偷猎行为, 也可以用来监察野生动物 的健康状况。
So what is a drone? Well, the kind of drone I'm talking about is simply a model aircraft fitted with an autopilot system, and this autopilot unit contains a tiny computer, a GPS, a compass, a barometric altimeter and a few other sensors. Now a drone like this is meant to carry a useful payload, such as a video camera or a photographic camera. It also requires a software that allows the user to program a mission, to tell the drone where to go.
那么,究竟什么是无人机? 我正在谈论的这种无人机 简单来讲就是一种 搭载了自动驾驶仪的飞行器, 这个自动驾驶仪包含了一个微型计算机, 一个全球定位系统,一个指南仪,一个气压高度计, 以及一些其他的传感器。 一个像这样的无人机 是用来载重有用的东西的, 比如一个摄影机 或者一个照相机。 同时也需要一个软件给使用者 编写任务程序, 来告诉无人机飞向哪里。
Now people I talk to are often surprised when they hear that these are the only four components that make a conservation drone, but they are even more surprised when I tell them how affordable these components are. The facts is, a conservation drone doesn't cost very much more than a good laptop computer or a decent pair of binoculars.
当人们听到一架环境保护无人机 仅仅只有这四部分组成的时候, 他们总是很惊奇, 但当我告诉他们这些部件的价格 并不是那么贵的时候,他们显得更加惊讶。 事实上,一架环境保护无人机 并不会比一台好的笔记本电脑, 或者 一个像样的双目望远镜更加昂贵。
So now that you've built your own conservation drone, you probably want to go fly it, but how does one fly a drone? Well, actually, you don't, because the drone flies itself. All you have to do is to program a mission to tell the drone where to fly. But you simply do that by clicking on a few way points on the Google Maps interface using the open-source software. Those missions could be as simple as just a few way points, or they could be slightly longer and more complicated, to fly along a river system. Sometimes, we fly the drone in a lawnmower-type pattern and take pictures of that area, and those pictures can be processed to produce a map of that forest. Other researchers might want to fly the drone along the boundaries of a forest to watch out for poachers or people who might be trying to enter the forest illegally.
那么现在你已经制造了自己的无人机, 你肯定想让它飞起来。 但是如何使一架无人机飞起来呢? 事实是,并不是你让它飞起来, 因为,无人机自己就可以飞。 你所需要做的仅仅是设定一个任务, 告诉无人机飞向哪里。 但是你只需要在Google地图上 用开源软件 点击一些路径点。 这些任务可以仅仅只是 简单的几个路径点, 或者他们可以更长一些更加复杂一些, 比如沿着河流飞行。 有时候,我们让无人机按照一个 除草机的路径飞行,为一片区域拍照, 这些图片可以被处理 成为那片森林的地图。 其他的研究者,也许想要让无人机 沿着森林的边界飞行, 来阻止偷猎者或者 其他试图非法进入森林的人。
Now whatever your mission is, once you've programmed it, you simply upload it to the autopilot system, bring your drone to the field, and launch it simply by tossing it in the air. And often we'll go about this mission taking pictures or videos along the way, and usually at that point, we will go grab ourselves a cup of coffee, sit back, and relax for the next few minutes, although some of us sit back and panic for the next few minutes worrying that the drone will not return. Usually it does, and when it does, it even lands automatically.
不管你的目的是什么, 一旦你设定了它, 你只需要上传它到无人机的自动飞行系统, 把你的无人机带到空旷的地方, 把它掷向空中来使它起飞。 我们经常让无人机 沿途拍摄照片,录制录像, 通常这时候, 我们就会给自己一杯咖啡, 坐下,放松几分钟, 尽管也会有人坐下后开始担忧 无人机会不会安全返航。 通常它都能返航, 它甚至可以自动着陆。
So what can we do with a conservation drone? Well, when we built our first prototype drone, our main objective was to fly it over a remote rainforest in North Sumatra, Indonesia, to look for the nest of a species of great ape known as the orangutan. The reason we wanted to do that was because we needed to know how many individuals of this species are still left in that forest. Now the traditional method of surveying for orangutans is to walk the forest on foot carrying heavy equipment and to use a pair of binoculars to look up in the treetops where you might find an orangutan or its nest. Now as you can imagine, that is a very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly process, so we were hoping that drones could significantly reduce the cost of surveying for orangutan populations in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. So we were very excited when we captured our first pair of orangutan nests on camera. And this is it; this is the first ever picture of orangutan nests taken with a drone. Since then we have taken pictures of dozens of these nests from around various parts of Southeast Asia, and we're now working with computer scientists to develop algorithms that can automatically count the number of nests from the thousands of photos we've collected so far.
那么我们能用环境保护无人机做什么呢? 当我们制造我们的第一架原型机时, 我们的主要任务就是让它飞到 一片遥远的雨林,在印度尼西亚的北苏门答腊, 去寻找一种大型猿类, 即红毛猩猩的巢穴。 我们这样做是因为 我们想知道在那片雨林中 还剩下多少只红毛猩猩。 通常传统的搜寻红毛猩猩的方法 是带上沉重的装备 徒步穿越雨林, 用双目望远镜在雨林顶端寻找, 你可能会找到一只红毛猩猩,或者它的巢穴。 你可以想象 这是一件多么耗费时间,耗费人力, 多么昂贵的工程, 所以我们希望无人机 能够极大地减少统计 在印度尼西亚和在其他东南亚地区的 红毛猩猩的数量的成本。 所以当我们用相机找到第一对红毛猩猩巢穴的时候, 我们非常兴奋。 这就是那张照片,第一张用无人机拍摄的 红毛猩猩巢穴的照片。 我们在东南亚的不同地方 都拍到了很多 这样的巢穴的照片, 现在我们正和计算机科学家们 一起开发计算方法, 用我们已有的数千张照片自动计算 巢穴的数量。
But nests are not the only objects these drones can detect. This is a wild orangutan happily feeding on top of a palm tree, seemingly oblivious to our drone that was flying overhead, not once but several times. We've also taken pictures of other animals including forest buffalos in Gabon, elephants, and even turtle nests.
但是,红毛猩猩巢穴,不是 无人机可以侦测到的唯一的东西。 这是一个野生红毛猩猩 在一棵棕榈树顶开心地进食, 完全没有察觉到我们的无人机正飞行在它的头顶, 不是一次,而是很多次。 我们也拍摄了很多其他动物的照片, 包括在加蓬的森林水牛, 大象,甚至乌龟巢。
But besides taking pictures of just the animals themselves, we also take pictures of the habitats these animals live in, because we want to keep track of the health of these habitats. Sometimes, we zoom out a little and look at other things that might be happening in the landscape. This is an oil palm plantation in Sumatra. Now oil palm is a major driver of deforestation in that part of the world, so we wanted to use this new drone technology to keep track of the spread of these plantations in Southeast Asia. But drones could also be used to keep track of illegal logging activities. This is a recently logged forest, again in Sumatra. You could even still see the processed wooden planks left on the ground.
但是除了拍摄野生动物的照片, 我们也拍摄它们的栖息地, 因为我们想要跟踪 这些栖息地的生态状况。 有时候,我们会把画面缩小 来观察整个大环境 是否正在发生变化。 这是一片苏门答腊的油棕榈种植园。 现在,在苏门答腊,油棕榈种植 是滥伐森林的主要推动力, 所以我们想要用这种新的无人机技术 跟踪这些种植园 在东南亚的扩散。 无人机也可以被用于跟踪 非法的木材砍伐。 这是一张被最近刚砍伐过的森林的照片, 也是在苏门答腊。 你甚至还可以看到 留在地上的被处理过的木板。
But perhaps the most exciting part about taking pictures from the air is we could later stitch these pictures together using special software to create a map of the entire landscape, and this map gives us crucial information for monitoring land use change, to let us know where and when plantations might be expanding, where forests might be contracting, or where fires might be breaking out. Aerial images could also be processed to produce three-dimensional computer models of forests. Now these models are not just visually appealing, but they are also geometrically accurate, which means researchers can now measure the distance between trees, calculate surface area, the volume of vegetation, and so on, all of which are important information for monitoring the health of these forests. Recently, we've also begun experimenting with thermal imaging cameras. Now these cameras can detect heat-emitting objects from the ground, and therefore they are very useful for detecting poachers or their campfires at night.
但是在空中拍照 最激动人心的也许是, 后期我们可以用特殊的软件把这些照片 拼合在一起,来制造一张全景地图, 这张地图 可以给我们提供 监测土地使用状况的关键信息, 让我们知道何时何地种植园也许正在扩张, 哪里森林也许正在收缩, 哪里也许有火灾。 这些航空图片 也可以被制作成森林的 三维电脑模型。 这些模型不仅仅在视觉上吸引人, 它们也非常精确, 这就意味着,研究者们可以测量 树木之间的距离, 计算表面积,植被体积等等, 这些都是非常重要的数据, 可以用来监测这些森林的生态状况。 最近,我们也开始了 热成像相机的试验。 这些相机可以检测 地面上的热源物体, 因此,它们在侦测偷猎者和他们夜晚的营火时特别有用。
So I've told you quite a lot about what conservation drones are, how you might operate one of these drones, and what a drone could do for you. I will now tell you where conservation drones are being used around the world. We built our first prototype drones in Switzerland. We brought a few of these to Indonesia for the first few test flights. Since then, we've been building drones for our collaborators from around the world, and these include fellow biologists and partners from major conservation organizations.
我已经跟你讲了很多关于 什么是环境保护无人机, 如何操纵无人机, 和无人机能为你做些什么。 我现在将告诉你世界上哪些地方 正在使用环境保护无人机。 我们在瑞士制造了第一架原型机。 我们带了一些到印度尼西亚 做一些首次的测试飞行。 从那以后,我们一直在为我们全世界的合作者 制造无人机, 包括生物学家, 和来自大型环境保护组织的合作者。
Perhaps the best and most rewarding part about working with these collaborators is the feedback they give us on how to improve our drones. Building drones for us is a constant work in progress. We are constantly trying to improve them in terms of their range, their ruggedness, and the amount of payload they can carry. We also work with collaborators to discover new ways of using these drones. For example, camera traps are a common tool used by biologists to take pictures of shy animals hiding in the forests, but these are motion-activated cameras, so they snap a picture every time an animal crosses their path. But the problem with camera traps is that the researcher has to go back to the forest every so often to retrieve those images, and that takes a lot of time, especially if there are dozens or hundreds of these cameras placed in the forest. Now a drone could be designed to perform the task much more efficiently. This drone, carrying a special sensor, could be flown over the forest and remotely download these images from wi-fi–enabled cameras.
也许与这些合作者工作中 最好的最有价值的部分 就是他们给我们的关于如何 改进我们的无人机的反馈。 制造无人机 是一个要一直持续下去的工作。 我们一直在试图不断地改进无人机, 比如飞行距离、对恶劣环境的耐受性, 能携带的最大荷载等。 我们也与合作者一起 发现运用无人机的新方法。 例如,相机陷阱 是生物学家们通用的给那些藏在树林里 的害羞的动物拍照的方法, 但是这些是触发式的相机, 当一个动物穿过它们的路径时 才会拍照。 这些相机陷阱的问题在于 研究者必须频繁地 回到森林中去取回这些照片, 这花费很多时间, 特别是当森林中 放有数百个照相机时。 现在,无人机可以更加高效地 完成这项工作。 携带着特殊传感器的无人机 可以在森林上空 远距离地,从能发射wifi信号的相机中 下载图像。
Radio collars are another tool that's commonly used by biologists. Now these collars are put onto animals. They transmit a radio signal which allows the researcher to track the movements of these animals across the landscape. But the traditional way of tracking animals is pretty ridiculous, because it requires the researcher to be walking on the ground carrying a huge and cumbersome radio antenna, not unlike those old TV antennae we used to have on our rooftops. Some of us still do. A drone could be used to do the same job much more efficiently. Why not equip a drone with a scanning radio receiver, fly that over the forest canopy in a certain pattern which would allow the user or the operator to triangulate the location of these radio-collared animals remotely without having to step foot in the forest.
无线电项圈是另一种 被生物学家广泛运用的工具。 这些项圈被放置在动物身上。 它们传输无线电信号, 使研究者可以跟踪这些动物的行踪。 但是传统的跟踪方法, 非常地不合理, 因为它要求研究者携带巨大的, 笨重的无线电接收装置行走, 有点类似我们以前老式电视上的 装在楼顶的天线。一些人现在还是用这样的电视。 一架无人机可以做同样的工作, 但是更加高效。 为什么不给一架无人机 装备一个无线电接收装置, 让它在森林上空 以一个特定的路线飞行, 这样可以让操作者 用三角测量的方法确定 携带着无线电圈的动物的位置, 而完全不需要研究者进入森林。
A third and perhaps most exciting way of using these drones is to fly them to a really remote, never-explored-before rainforest somewhere hidden in the tropics, and parachute down a tiny spy microphone that would allow us to eavesdrop on the calls of mammals, birds, amphibians, the Yeti, the Sasquatch, Bigfoot, whatever. That would give us biologists a pretty good idea of what animals might be living in those forests.
第三,也许也是最有意思的运用 无人机的方法, 是让它们飞到一片非常遥远, 从未被探索过的 隐藏在热带地区的雨林, 投下一个微型侦测话筒, 我们就可以偷听哺乳动物 鸟类,两栖类, 雪人,大足怪,等等管它是什么的声音。 这将给我们生物学家 一个非常好的了解什么动物 生活在这些森林里的机会。
And finally, I would like to show you the latest version of our conservation drone. The MAJA drone has a wingspan of about two meters. It weighs only about two kilograms, but it can carry half its weight. It is a fully autonomous system. During its mission, it can even transmit a live video feed back to a ground station laptop, which allows the user to see what the drone is seeing in real time. It carries a variety of sensors, and the photo quality of some of these sensors can be as high as one to two centimeters per pixel. This drone can stay in the air for 40 to 60 minutes, which gives it a range of up to 50 kilometers. That is quite sufficient for most of our conservation applications.
最后,我想向你们展示一下 我们最新的环境保护无人机。 MAJA无人机 有大约两米的翼展。 它仅仅只有两千克重, 但是却能携带相当于它自己一半重量的装备。 它是一个全自动的系统。 起飞后,它可以传输 一个实时视频信号给地面电脑, 这样使用者可以实时 看到无人机所看到的。 它还携带有很多传感器, 其中一些传感器的照片质量可以 清晰到一到两厘米每像素。 这架无人机可以连续飞行40到60分钟, 即50千米的飞行距离。 这对于我们大多数环保任务来说 已经非常够用了。
Now, conservation drones began as a crazy idea from two biologists who are just deeply passionate about this technology. And we believe, strongly believe, that drones can and will be a game changer for conservation research and applications. We've had our fair share of skeptics and critics who thought that we were just fooling around with toy planes. And in a way, they are right. I mean, let's be honest, drones are the ultimate toys for boys. But at the same time, we've also gotten to know many wonderful colleagues and collaborators who share our vision and see the potential of conservation drones. To us, it is obvious that conservation biologists and practitioners should make full use of every available tool, including drones, in our fight to save the last remaining forests and wildlife of this planet.
环境保护无人机,起源于两个生物学家的 疯狂点子, 他们非常狂热于技术。 我们相信,非常强烈地相信 无人机可以给环境保护研究与应用 带来革命性的改变。 我们也遭受过质疑与批评, 有人认为我们仅仅只是在玩一些儿童玩具。 从某种程度上说,他们是对的。 我想说的是,老实说, 无人机确实是男孩的终极玩具。 但是同时,我们必须认识到, 很多优秀的同行与合作者们, 也和我们一样 看到了环境保护无人机的潜在价值。 对我们而言,很明显,环境保护生物学家们 和实践者们应该充分利用 每一个可用的工具,包括无人机, 来保护地球上现存的森林 和野生动物。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
掌声