Feb 13, 2017Researchers at the University of Kent are teaming up with the South African National Biodiversity Institute to raise funding that will enable the launch of a radio frequency identification-based solution to protect rare and endangered plants from poaching. The University of Kent's researchers have developed and tested a system in house that detects when an RFID-tagged plant is removed from its expected location. Software can then forward an alert to park rangers and other individuals, warning them of a potential poaching event.
The next step, for both the U.K. college and the South African institute, is to gather funding to deploy the technology at national parks throughout South Africa, where it can be used to monitor endangered cycads.
The system was devised by David Roberts, a associate professor in biodiversity conservation in the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology in Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation, and John Batchelor, a professor of antenna technology in Kent's School of Electronics and Digital Arts, to help automatically identify when threatened plants are being removed. It thereby enables local law enforcement to prevent that action before the perpetrators can leave a park or other site.
The group is initially testing the technology on cycads since such seed plants are threatened and highly vulnerable to theft. These cacti predate the Jurassic period, the researchers explain. Cycads can make dramatic ornaments for gardens, golf courses, hotels or other properties, and are thus valued at up to $1,000 per plant, depending on their size. This makes the tree vulnerable in its natural settings, such as rocky outcrops in South Africa. Approximately 40 percent of cycads are currently endangered, in part because they have been heavily poached.
Several years ago, Roberts says, he heard Batchelor speak about the value of RFID technology for such processes as wheelchair management in health-care facilities. "That got me thinking about what I could do with the technology to protect plants," he recalls. The resulting solution was designed by the two scientists' conservation and electronics teams. The system consists of a fixed RFID reader to capture the transmissions of passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags on cycads in real time, so that it can immediately detect the removal of a plant from its read range.
Researchers are attaching a container with a built-in tag containing a UHF chip from Impinj, with the university's own customized tamper-proof case, to each cycad's base. To do this, the team screws the case that contains the tag directly to the trunk via a concealed screw. The tag case is intended to be tamper-proof, Roberts says. "Ripping the box from the plant would cause the screw to remain in the plant," Batchelor explains, "and it would rip apart the tag in the box." Trying to remove the RFID chip from the case would also be impossible, he adds. Prying open the case lid would rip the chip from the tag inside the case, thereby rendering it inoperable.
The researchers installed a Favite RFID reader portal and a processor system in an indoor location to track the presence of plants. They then moved it outdoors to test the technology in that setting on local trees, Roberts says.
According to the researchers, their goal is to install the technology at national parks and other locations, in order to protect the plants in the wild. Because such plants typically grow within a small area, the use of passive UHF RFID would enable most of a specific plant population to be monitored. In addition, Roberts explains, some plants could be tagged, while other plants would remain untagged, but would have an empty container attached to them. These containers would appear to be tags, but in fact would be empty. In the latter case, he notes, just the presence of the reader could provide sufficient visual deterrent to potential poachers that they would leave the plants alone.
The technology is designed with software to expect reads from specific tags. If someone were to tamper with a tag or simply remove a tagged cycad, the system would detect that action and forward an alert to authorized parties via a text message.
The key challenge for the researchers, Batchelor reports, has been designing the tag and case so that tampering would always damage the tag. "Our next design iteration would consider a chip with in-built tamper detection," he states, "so that we can actively detect theft, rather than just indirectly through loss of a signal."
At present, the team is still determining how the reader will best be powered—via solar power harvesting, for instance, or with a battery. The device could forward data to a hosted server via a satellite or cellular connection.
Although testing has initially focused on wild plants, Roberts says, he sees other use cases for the solution as well. For example, cycads or other high-value plants could be tracked in botanical gardens, greenhouses or other commercial operations. He has also considered testing the use of RFID technology with sensors to track the health of ornamental fish. A tag and sensor could be attached to a bag in which an individual fish is stored, and could measure the pH level of the water contained within that bag. Users such as international shippers could interrogate the tag to determine whether the water was healthy for that particular fish.
