Edge Intelligence for Wildlife Conservation: Real-Time Hornbill Call Classification Using TinyML

Hornbills, an iconic species of Malaysia's biodiversity, face threats from habitat loss, poaching, and environmental changes, necessitating accurate and real-time population monitoring that is traditionally challenging and resource intensive. The emergence of Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) offers a chance to transform wildlife monitoring by enabling efficient, real-time data analysis directly on edge devices. Addressing the challenge of wildlife conservation, this research paper explores the pivotal role of machine learning, specifically TinyML, in the classification and monitoring of hornbill calls in Malaysia. Leveraging audio data from the Xeno-canto database, the study aims to develop a speech recognition system capable of identifying and classifying hornbill vocalizations. The proposed methodology involves preprocessing the audio data, extracting features using Mel-Frequency Energy (MFE), and deploying the model on an Arduino Nano 33 BLE, which is adept at edge computing. The research encompasses foundational work, including a comprehensive introduction, literature review, and methodology. The model is trained using Edge Impulse and validated through real-world tests, achieving high accuracy in hornbill species identification. The project underscores the potential of TinyML for environmental monitoring and its broader application in ecological conservation efforts, contributing to both the field of TinyML and wildlife conservation.