I need to detect small birds flying by. Can your radar sensors do it?

Sensors IMU & Motion
1

Hi all…

For an avian research project I need to detect and count migrating birds flying through a mountain pass, and I’m wondering if any of your radar products (such as the Pulsed Radar Breakout - A111) are equal to the task.

Here are a few details:

  • The birds will be quite close to the sensor, typically within about 30 yards.
  • The sensor could be placed facing up, so unless there’s a passing bird it will only see open sky.
  • These are small birds (finches, warblers, sparrows, etc.) with a typical wing span of 6 to 8 inches.
  • They will be moving past the sensor at about 30 to 40 MPH.

What do you think?

2

This one SparkFun Pulsed Coherent Radar Sensor - Acconeer XM125 (Qwiic) can do up 20m, but that’s about all we have for longer distance sensors

You could probably use a raspberry Pi and its HQ camera, or an infrared camera, and run a thresholding program to detect ‘dark spots’ moving across the frame and count them that way…or perhaps detect them with sound?

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