Scientists deploy neural network in VK cloud to help preserve pelican population

2023: Development of a neural network for the program "Preservation of curly and pink pelicans"

A group of scientists and IT specialists developed on the platform VK Cloud neuronet for the program "Preservation of Curly and Pink Pelicans." The model helps monitor breeding colonies, seasonal and forage clusters of Red Book pelicans, including those outside nature reserves. Technology has automated the process and accelerated the count of individuals from 7 days to 30 milliseconds. The project was implemented as part of a VK support program. startups The company announced this on September 7, 2023.

Monitoring colonies of pink and curly pelicans helps track the migration of birds and analyze the trajectory of their movement. Indirectly, this helps to identify climate change or problems with, ecology- said the scientific secretary Moscow Zoo Roman Anoshin. - Manually counting birds is a laborious process, so we decided to automate it with and machine learning developed a model computer vision based on a neural network.

The neural network made it possible to get away from the standard method of counting the population of rare pelicans, which was time and resource consuming. The model analyzes images from quadcopters and determines the number of individuals of the population in a split second. To quickly launch and reduce the cost of developing and testing a neural network, VK's Cloud ML Platform solution was used. To make it convenient for ornithologists to work with the model, on its basis the project team deployed the service in the cloud and connected a chat bot to it in the messenger as an interface.

Cloud services make technology more accessible to R&D projects. Tools for developing and working with data in the cloud are already predefined, just deploy them in a few clicks and start using them for tasks. Over the past few years, the number of AI projects has been increasing in various areas, including startups in medical, fintech and scientific organizations. And we are pleased to support such initiatives with VK Cloud technologies and cloud capabilities, - said Mikhail Tutaev, Product Director of VK Cloud.

In the future, the project team plans to move from MVP in the form of a basic model and chatbot to a full-fledged tool. This will allow us to begin continuous monitoring of pelicans in the south, and Russia Kalmykia Western Siberia.