From the Shed to the Skies: A Journey of Sensor Development and Deployment Involving Bicycles, Drones and Eagles

Sensor development doesn’t always occur in high tech, air-conditioned laboratories. The first iteration of a
lightweight meteorological package designed to be carried by birds involved cycling to a local shop late at night
to pick up a Raspberry Pi zero which came free with a magazine. After maturation in a garden shed, involving
late-night Python programming and a sprinkling of additional sensors, a functioning prototype emerged capable
of making meteorological and positional measurements at up to 5Hz. This prototype was tested first on a bicycle,
then a drone, and then a White-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) called Victor in the Scottish highlands (Thomas
et al. 2017). A smaller version has been deployed on pigeons and is undergoing modifications to use the LORA
network for realtime data transmission.
Come and view this poster (with props!) exploring the successes and failures during this sensor develop-
ment and the rigorous scientific testing and continuing miniaturisation allowing it to primarily address the
important scientific challenge of improving pollution and heat event forecasting in urban areas.