MegaFon is introducing a video monitoring system that monitors the movement of wild animals near the settlements of the Far North

2023: Introduction of a video monitoring system for the movement of wild animals near the settlements of the Far North

MegaFon is introducing a video monitoring system that monitors the movement of wild animals near the settlements of the Far North. The video signal from the territories bordering the forest is processed online by a neural network that automatically notifies ecologists and emergency services if predators go beyond their natural habitat. MegaFon announced this on September 22, 2023.

The project was called "Smart North," the first wildlife observation point was deployed in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug). The equipment installed by MegaFon on the border of the Pionersky settlement and the forest area transmits video data to the intelligent system, which automatically identifies the wild animal.

Biometric identification provided by the platform NtechLab of the video analytics developer company. software When artificial intelligence it recognizes a bear in a video stream and determines that it is moving towards humans, the system signals it to environmentalists and emergency services.

The idea to create a digital system that monitors the movement of bears arose from the pupils of the oil branch of the Kwantorium children's technopark, where they master the technologies and foundations of engineering specialties. The guys are actively participating in the project: now they, together with NtechLab, are "training" the neural network to recognize wild animals as accurately as possible on the basis of an array of video material. Employees of the local reserves "Malaya Sosva" and "Yugansky" actively help in this work.

The idea of ​ ​ schoolchildren to use digital technologies to take care of animals is very consonant with what we have been doing for several years throughout the country. MegaFon's technologies provide round-the-clock and automated support to a wide variety of sectors of society and business: our 24/7 eco-monitoring systems collect and analyze data on the state of the environment, and the industrial and construction facilities of our partners are equipped with systems for monitoring transport and industrial safety, "said Alexander Kaloshin, Director of National Projects at MegaFon .

The Smart North project is relevant and helps interact with wildlife without disrupting the way of life of its inhabitants: it is better for everyone when animals remain in their natural environment. From a scientific point of view, he is also interesting for the opportunity to observe brown bears at a new high-tech level, "said Evgeny Strelnikov, Honored Ecologist of the Russian Federation, Director of the Yugansky Reserve.

The Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug is the largest territory of Russia where brown bears live. In 2022 alone, there were 163 reported cases of them coming to residential neighborhoods. The Kvantorium student project, which is being implemented by technology giants MegaFon and NtechLab, is relevant for all regions of Russia that face a similar problem of human and wildlife neighborhood, "said Alla Pivovarova, head of the Smart North project at Kvantorium Nefteyugansk.