AI to rescue Coimbatore villagers from elephant attacks

COIMBATORE: As a tusker and a female wild elephant, the habitual crop raiders, embark on their usual sojourn to raid crops in a village in Kemmarampalayam panchayat near Karamadai on the foothills of the Western Ghats near Coimbatore at past midnight, they get distracted by the loud noise of tribal people’s peculiar shouting. The elephants are confused, but immediately retreat scared as the sound from the loudspeaker changes into the buzzing of bees.

For those who wonder, where this sound is coming from, it is the AI-based intrusion detection system that triggers an audio alarm in different sounds. The system has come as a blessing in disguise to deter elephants from entering their village thereby protecting people and their crops.

“It used to be a herculean task to stay awake all night to chase away wild elephants that frequently visit our village foraging on crops and damaging properties. The compensation for crop damage for the farmers is just a measly sum. However, it is peaceful now with a night of good sleep after the implementation of an advanced elephant deterrence system,” say villagers.

The Kemmarampalayam panchayat is the first village in the Coimbatore district to adopt an AI-based system to prevent elephant intrusions. “The sensor system detects the arrival of an elephant, as they come into the earmarked boundary and automatically raises an alarm through a speaker with different sounds like the buzzing of bees, siren of an ambulance, gun-shot and as well as some peculiar sounds raised by tribal to scare away the elephants,” said Selvi Nirmala Ponnusamy, the president of Kemmarampalayam Panchayat.

After months of study, the cameras were fixed at a vulnerable spot where elephants frequent ‘Irularpathi’ village after coming out of the forest cover. Besides the siren, message alerts were also generated automatically to the forest department that carried out the driving operation.

Elephant arrivals were thwarted successfully on multiple occasions ten months ago since the AI cameras were fixed. “Even a fortnight ago, a three-member elephant herd was left scared by the sounds raised through the AI system. The cameras capture the movement of wild animals within a radius of 500 metres and trigger an alarm automatically. However, in recent days the elephants have started avoiding this usual way and instead are finding new routes to enter into other nearby villages in Kemmarampalayam panchayat located along the forest fringes,” she said.

Therefore, the panchayat authorities have urged the state government to fix a similar AI-based intrusion detection system along the ten-kilometre radius boundary of the Western Ghats to prevent their entry completely. The Kemmarampalayam panchayat, comprising 32 villages with over 10,000 people, earn their livelihood through farming. Hence, farmers tend to suffer huge losses due to heavy damage caused by wild elephants and wild boars.

“The installation of the device last November has drastically reduced the frequency of elephant intrusions in the specific village. So far, their intrusions have been prevented at least ten times. As part of a machine learning process, over 25 lakh photos of elephants and other wildlife were fed into the system to detect and send alerts on a real-time basis,” said PG Ragavandir, the CEO of BGENT, an R&D firm that has implemented the project jointly with the forest department.

As the system produces encouraging results, plans are afoot to expand the pilot project for a ten-kilometre radius in the same locality along the forest boundary. “With the support of the forest department, we are hopeful of the project taking off in a couple of months,” he added.

Currently, the AI-based intrusion detection system has been implemented through a central government grant under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) received by the R&D firm through Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU).