In these short video tutorials you will follow one of our instructors to learn about Immobility Analyzers, and how to set up in EarthRanger admin.
Overview of Immobility Analyzers
This video provides an introduction to immobility analyzers in EarthRanger, explaining how they detect when a tracked subject stops moving. Learn about system-generated events, including immobility and immobility all-clear, and how these tools help monitor wildlife and operational assets effectively.
Transcript:
Welcome again, EarthRanger community, to another EarthRanger Guided Demo. This demo is part of a three-part series in which we are looking at analyzers. The first video or demo focused on analyzers in general, and we went into a deep dive for geofence analyzers. This second part of the series focuses on immobility analyzers.
You'll see now, on the Easter Island map, I have an immobility event type listed on my feed as well as on the map. So, if I open this from the feed view, this is how it'll populate. As you can see, this is a system-generated event type. By that, I mean, it is not created by an individual. No individual creates this. It's generated by the system when a specific event has been detected by the system itself.
Reported by will be EarthRanger System, and then you'll have all of the other parameters, like the event location, event date and time, and so forth. And then within the details, because this is a system-generated event type, all of this information is generated by the system based on what it is reading from the configuration on the administration side. Right, so the name of the subject, the fixed count, total fixed count, the cluster, and all of the other pieces of information which we'll look at when we do the configuration on the administration side.
There are two different types of immobility event types because the first one is an immobility event. That means the subject or the trackers have been detected to be immobile, and therefore this event type gets generated. So once we follow up on that immobility event, we go and check on Nijin, and we find that maybe Nijin was stuck in a mud well, and we basically assist with getting him out of the mud well.
Then, Nijin starts moving again, and the system will then generate an immobility all-clear to signal that this specific subject that was detected to be immobile has now begun moving again. So, it is now mobile. Both of them are system-generated event types or instances. Nijin was just taking a nap, but because of the threshold of the configuration on the admin side, the total fix count and the number of observations within a specific radius were detected as the specific subject being immobile. Then the subject will trigger an event type which says the subject is immobile. But as soon as Nijin wakes up and starts moving again, then it'll say immobility all-clear.
These event types go hand in hand with the reporting frequencies of your collared tracks, right? So, if you've set a reporting frequency call out to all of your devices to report every three hours and so forth, just keep in mind that when you set those thresholds, they account for the reporting frequency of the collar as well. So, they take that into account. That's why there are two different types of immobility event types in the system that are generated by the system.
And remember, when you go into the front end, once you've configured an immobility analyzer, unlike the geofence analyzer or the proximity analyzer, which we'll cover in the third and final part of this video or demo series, they don't show as configured analyzers under the analyzers tab. As you can see there, we have a geofence. Once we create a proximity, it'll also show in there as a layer in our system. But for the immobility analyzers, they don't have, they don't show as a layer. They only trigger an event type or two event types depending on the workflow which is triggered at a specific point of time when the occurrence is occurring in the system.
Admin Configuration for Immobility Analyzers
This video walks you through the step-by-step process of configuring immobility analyzers in the EarthRanger admin interface. Discover how to set threshold parameters like radius, time, and ratio, and see how these settings help detect immobility events for different types of subjects.
Transcript:
The core learning of this specific demo is to explain and to look at how to get configured immobility analyzers on the EarthRanger administration side. So, the immobility analyzer monitors whether a subject is either moving or it is not moving within a specific time, speed, and distance. Those are the different parameters or thresholds that we consider when we are configuring an immobility analyzer.
See those parameters—the first one being the threshold radius, which is defined in meters. There's a circle within which a subject point will be considered to be stationary. So, this is if we've set a collar to report every three hours, and there are three points within a specific defined radius. Basically, we are counting for nine hours within a specific radius. Then, let's say we set a ten-meter radius, and there are three points at nine hours in a nine-hour cycle. Then, obviously, that'll trigger an immobility analyzer because our subject has not moved, or their observation points reported by that specific device have not gone out of that threshold radius of ten meters within the set time, which would be the second parameter—the threshold time in seconds. This is the maximum time frame a subject is expected to be stationary.
So, if you expect, let's say, lions, for instance, to sit around under the shade during the day, and obviously, they have a fixed count, the observation points will be concentrated in one specific area. So, you wouldn't want to put those in an immobility analyzer that has a very small time threshold or a very small threshold radius, right? So, for each and every subject, you have to look at how it behaves—nocturnally, during the day—or just tap into the profile of the subject itself and configure the immobility analyzer accordingly.
The threshold radius is the number of stationary points within a specific region or within a specific threshold during that specific time. Alright, but we'll look at these as well, as I said, as we go into the configuration on the admin side.
So, I'll go into the administration side here of the same Easter Island instance, and we're going to configure this. What I like to do, which is basically just my preference, but I always advise people to do so, is just block out the noise of your administration side and pull out the analyzers menu by clicking on analyzers. So, as you can see, I'm just focusing specifically on the analyzers menu and nothing else. Right, so then from here, what I do is analyzers, immobility analyzers, and as you can see on this demo instance, there is no immobility analyzer that has already been configured. Because remember, everything on this side is demo data.
So, analyzer name could be any arbitrary name—let's say rhinos, Rhino’s—and then the subject group. This is very important in that you always create a specific subject group. Remember, we said segment your subject groups, so for each individual type of subject, create a unique mobility model because they behave differently and they move differently. So, what you want to do in this instance is check from your group of subjects if you don't already have a pre-configured subject group, which we do here—we have rhinos. You do have the opportunity to edit through this menu, which will take you to the observations menu, create subject group, and you can create your subject group from this page. Otherwise, if you have already created a subject group prior, as we do in this example, then you can just choose from the available list, right?
So, remember, there's always multiple ways in which you can perform an action in EarthRanger, either directly from the native menu of that specific element—like, for instance, for subject groups, you go to observations, then subject group, create subject group—or, in this instance, just go directly to the analyzer—I mean, the immobility analyzer page—and create a subject group from there by clicking on the green add button.
And then, remember we said the last best practice was deactivate instead of deleting once you don't want to use it anymore? This is where you would perform that action. This basically designates whether the analyzer—the immobility analyzer—is active or inactive. So, we'll leave it as active. And then you have the speed threshold parameters here. So, this is what basically defines how much data and when you will receive data, depending on the devices that have been fitted to your tracked assets.
So, you'll see threshold radius. You also have these nice tooltips in EarthRanger, all around the EarthRanger system, where it tells you exactly what it is that you're configuring. So, this would be the most important part of you knowing how you want to save these because, as we said, rhinos will move differently than rangers, rangers will move differently than vehicles, lions, elephants—all different types of species or operational assets will move differently, behave differently during the day, during the night. So, you want to make sure that you save these thresholds. These are the defaults, right? So, you have a threshold of 13, which just basically means we have a radius of 13 meters. If there's a certain amount of points within that radius, then that subject will be considered to be stationary.
And then, threshold time—this is the maximum time frame a subject is expected to be stationary. Then you have the threshold ratio, which is the total amount of points which you expect to be within a specific radius, right? As it says, it indicates a ratio threshold for a number of stationary points to total points. If the data indicates a higher ratio, the analyzer will produce an event. So, these work in conjunction with one another to trigger an event.
And if there's an alert notification tied to these immobility analyzers, then the necessary personnel—be it APU, conservationist, whoever the reaction team is—will receive a notification, and therefore they can follow up accordingly to see if there's anything that needs their attention. And then, if the subject starts moving again—right, if it was sleeping, or it was just stationary, or if it was just play-fighting or anything that could have transpired and then was immobile as the system detected—and they start moving again, then that immobility all-clear will show that this immobility event that was detected as the subject being immobile has now been resolved because the subject has moved again. So, it says immobility all-clear to notify you that the subject has started moving.
But in many instances, many organizations, many people still prefer to go and validate ground truth even if they receive an all-clear that the subject is still okay. For instance, if maybe there was an unfortunate event of a pangolin being smuggled—now it hasn't moved, it was burrowing, and then all of a sudden, it starts moving at 40 kilometers an hour. You would either get that person on a motorbike or driving away with it. You know, those kinds of situations. So, it's always good as well to ground truth your data as you receive it from the system.
And once you've defined your speed threshold parameters, that's it. You click on save, and whenever a rhino, based on the thresholds that you have defined, has not moved, then an event will get created, and the necessary personnel will be notified.
Best Practices for Immobility Analyzers
This video covers best practices for using immobility analyzers, including how to avoid false positives, configure alerts, and deactivate analyzers when not in use. Learn how to optimize these tools to ensure accurate monitoring and timely responses to immobility events.
Transcript:
And then, best practices—to avoid false positives, immobility analyzers use appropriate thresholds. As I was saying, for each individual specific type of tracked asset or subject, just be wary of how you configure for each individual type of subject so that you get the best results out of the immobility analyzer. We also have what we refer to as silent notifications, which are configured on the source provider level, and I will show you how to look at that. We also have a different module on that, and we'll get to recording a video about that, but it is linked to these immobility analyzers.
Another best practice is to configure alerts and notifications so that when a subject is detected to be immobile, relevant personnel within the organization are notified either via email, WhatsApp, or SMS to receive those notifications so that they can react accordingly.
Cool, and then if an analyzer is no longer used—so if you don't want to track the immobility of specific subjects—you can deactivate it instead of deleting it. That way, when the cycle comes in again, you can just reactivate it, reconfigure your subject groups, and then move forward with it.
Obviously, if there are any questions, if you need anything, any more insights regarding the speed thresholds, don't hesitate to reach out to the broader community on the ER community website or to reach out to us, the support team. We're always more than happy to either help you ourselves or to connect you with other personnel—learned people within the community itself—who can assist and advise on how to use these immobility analyzers or any other type of analyzer that you may want to deploy within your organization.
Alright, perfect. Well, that's it. If that is all I have to say for this specific demo, I'll see you in the next one, the third and final one, which is the proximity analyzer, looking at subject and feature proximity. Until then, visit support.earthranger.com, and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you.