PROBLEM DEFINITION

Since a long time ago, humanity has depended on forests for their energy, food, medicine and as a source of
wood products. However, the role of forests in supporting agriculture, preserving biodiversity, protecting water
supplies, protecting against soil erosion and moderating the impact of climate change are less well understood. Thus,
humanity is tends to exploits forests in a massive ways, whether legally or illegally.

Illegal logging is one of the world’s

Figure 1. Illegal Logging and Forest Burning
toughest problems in achieving the environment
sustainability. Although many policies and laws
are produced to handle it, it is still a serious
threat to the forests, since there are a lot of lacks
in managing and protecting the forests entirely.
Financially, The World Bank estimates that illegal
logging costs timber-producing countries
between 10 and 15 billion euros per year.
Environmentally, illegal logging damages the
environment since there is no certain limitation
of exploitation and mostly harms the indigenous
forests which are the lung of the world.

Besides the illegal logging, forest burning also has to be very much concerned. According to the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP), between 20-25% of all annual carbon dioxide emissions are caused by the practice of
burning forests to clear the land for farming — more than is caused by the entire world transportation sector. Burning
trees and brush releases the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.

Forest security is the vital point to handle illegal logging and forest burning. However, because of the wide area
of forests, the responsible parties cannot guard the forests every time. Therefore, to simplify the forest supervision, a
technology solution is needed.

THE EMBEDDED SOLUTION

GEMA (Green Echo-Monitoring Agent) is an embedded solution which able to notify responsible parties when
there is illegal logging or forest burning incidence in the protected forest. Basically, GEMA collects distinctive audio from
certain range of forest and analyze the possibilities if it originates from an illegal logging or forest burning incidence.
GEMA is consists of eBox as the audio information collector and a component named the “Ears” as the audio detector.
The ears is consists of AM Transmitter that able to send information to eBox or other ears and AM Receiver that able to
receive AM Radio Signal from other ears. There is also an ear chip that is consists of sound ID producer, switcher, and
amplifier. A mini solar panel is attached to supply electric power for the ear chip components, while the transmitter and
receiver are powerless. The ears are mounted in the top of a tree to avoid obstacle in transmitting audio and receive
sunlight as much as possible, while the eBox is placed in a safe area of the forest.

Audio information which is obtained by eBox will be analyzed through audio recognition to find the audio that
positively the sound of illegal-logging or forest burning. eBox will inform the responsible parties (ex: forest ranger)
about the suspected illegal logging or forest burning via internet connection. The eBox is connected to a wired/wireless
modem and sends information to responsible parties’ computer in form of sound itself, text which explain the detail of
the incidence, and information about the location of suspected incident.
HIGHLIGHTED FEATURES

1. AM Radio Signal Communication

Using the AM Radio Signal, GEMA is ready to be implemented globally

since AM Radio Signal is used worldwide and every country has it. The eBox is
equipped with AM Signal Receiver to collects audio information from the ears.

2. Powerless Transmitter and Receiver

The transmitter and receiver which are equipped on the ears in forests
don’t need any power supply. The AM Transmitter gains the electricity power
through detected sound. Audio power is translated for electric power and it
excite radio frequency oscillator. The triggering audio is amplified before it
triggers the transmitter. This transmitter generates about 20 micro watts
radio frequency energy, enough to carry the detected audio information to
the eBox. While the Crystal Radio as the AM Signal Receiver is essentially
powerless.

Since, they are self-powered, they become independent and effective

in transmitting audio information. The ears will only do a transmission when
there is massive sound which triggers its electric power.
Figure 2. Schematic Diagram
3. Home-made Organic Solar Panel (above) and layout (below) of
Powerless AM Transmitter
The home made solar panel is made of a conducting glass that is
covered with Titanium Dioxide (Ti02). The Titanium Dioxide is able to be
obtained from a donut powder. To make it absorbs the light energy, the
Titanium Dioxide nanoparticle is sensitized with tea extract. Then the
conducting glass is connected to the ear chips component to act as the power
supply. Therefore, the ear chip component is very efficient and economic
since it doesn’t need any external power supply. Figure 3. Schematic Diagram of
Crystal Radio
4. Echo Protocol

To enhance the range of transmission, ears are capable to act

as repeater to forward the audio information from other ears to eBox.
The forwarded information is called as “Echo”.

Echo protocol is a regulation of how an echo is forwarded

from ears to ears with the eBox as the final destination. This protocol
is made since there is possibility of frequency interference among the
ears when they transmit an echo. With echo protocol, echo is ensured
to arrive at eBox and not be scattered to entire ears.

The protocol is consists of the depth concept, which the ears

will always forward an echo to a lower depth until it reaches the
lowest depth (depth 0), that is the eBox. In figure 4, depth is
Figure 4. Frequency Division represented with the circle.
 Theoretically, one ear has area coverage in a form of hexagon. Thus, it has
six adjacent ears which must not have same transmission frequency. In the figure 4,
transmission frequency is illustrated with the color of hexagon; different color means
different transmission frequency. However, to save the usage of transmission
frequency, it can be reused in other hexagon area as long as the adjacent ears don’t
possess the same transmission frequency. In the figure 4, there are 60 hexagon ears
area + 1 hexagon ebox area with 8 different frequencies.

When an ear transmitting echo, the receiver in the recipient ear must has a
same frequency with the transmitter. However, there is possibility that an incidence
is that trigger the transmitter is happening in two different places at the same time,
like is shown in figure 5. There will be two different transmission frequencies that are
aimed to hexagon area that is marked with exclamation mark (!). To handle both
Figure 5. Two different
frequencies, ears are equipped with two AM Receiver which is shown in figure 6. And
transmission frequency
it is also equipped with switcher that functions to switch between two arriving handled by one ear
frequencies.

5. The Sound ID

Every ear has a sound ID which is saved

in the ear chip. Sound ID is a unique identifier
of the location of ear in the ear network. When
an incidence happens, the ear chip will embed
the sound ID onto the broadcasted echo, so
Figure 6. The Ear layout when the echo reaches eBox, the eBox will
recognize the location origin of the echo.

HARDWARE ARCHITECTURE

Device Cost eBox is equipped with Hard Disk to store the echo
eBox-3310A $200 recognition software and temporarily save the audio before
2.5” 160GB Hard Disk $40 forward it to responsible parties.
AM Receiver with USB Connection $35
Modem $20 Ideally, GEMA operates with one eBox and 60 ears
The Ears forming a hexagon forest protection. The total cost is would be
Powerless AM Transmitter $2 $792, which is consists of 1 eBox, 1 Hard Disk, 1 Modem, 2 AM
Crystal Radio $2 Receiver for eBox, 60 AM Transmitter, 60 Mini Solar Panel, 60 Ear
Mini Solar Panel $1 Chip, and 36 Crystal Radio.
Switcher, Sound ID Producer, Amplifier $1

SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE

The echo recognition algorithm is built with C# Programming Language and works above the .NET Micro
Framework Platform. The eBox is running the Windows Embedded Compact 7 which supports the echo recognition to
work steadily and robustly.