Open Acoustic Devices: Bringing low-cost smart acoustic sensors to conservation professionals

PI: Alex Rogers

Department: Computer Science

Open Acoustic Devices is a small, UK-based research group formed from a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Southampton. The group designs, supports and deploys open-source acoustic hardware for monitoring biodiversity and the environment. Its main contribution is AudioMoth, a low-cost open-source acoustic sensor that was launched as an open-source device through online group purchasing in September 2017.  This has been used in multiple applications, including automating the search for an elusive insect species, monitoring poaching by gunshot and listening for ultrasonic bat calls.

Over the last twelve months over 5500 AudioMoth devices have been bought and deployed by conservation groups worldwide. This project will ensure a sustainable future for AudioMoth. It will finalise the current design of AudioMoth, incorporating lessons learned, ensuring that it is manufacturable at scale, complies with all relevant regulations and has a weatherproof injection moulded housing, and it will spin-out of Open Acoustic Devices as a social enterprise which licenses the hardware design and firmware from Oxford University Innovation (OUI).