Aioli Board

The Problem

In recent years, there have been some truly awesome advances in the quality, quantity, and availability of remotely sensed earth observation data such as imagery from satellites and drones. These resources can inform and benefit conservation and environmental projects in radical new ways at both fully global and hyperlocal scales, from monitoring invasive species to detecting zoonotic disease. However, we need to understand how the dots connect to use these resources effectively. Specifically, it can be a difficult problem to easily understand 1) what earth observation data is available, where do we find it, and how should we use it? and 2) how does what we see from above the earth connect to what's happening on its surface?

Our Proposal

The Aioli board will make it easier to connect the dots between earth observation data and ground truth conditions in the field, from the field (or in the sea, from the sea!) The Aioli board will be a new Raspberry Pi-compatible Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) component that extends a Raspberry Pi computer to provide data interoperability and remote sensing data discovery tools. The Aioli project will serve as an evolving exploration of spatially aware sensor solutions and analytic possibilities in the field (at the "edge"), featuring the Node-RED visual programming platform and open source geospatial analysis and visualization tools. The Aioli project guides will provide example implementations for connecting Aioli-enabled Raspberry Pi's with popular Internet-of-Things ("IoT") platforms from leading cloud providers (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) and the Mozilla Foundation.

We Assume that...

A Raspberry Pi-compatible solution will facilitate more diverse solutions and greater ease of use than other popular physical computing platforms

Intended end users will not have electronics or computer science backgrounds

In order to be useful, virtually all deployed solutions will need to operate without readily available power for multiple days/weeks

Virtually all deployed solutions will need to be weatherized and waterproof

A project deploying multiple sensors (Raspberry Pi + Aioli) will likely utilize a cloud/web-based platform - the Aioli board should make this utilization easy and intuitive

Constraints to Overcome

Similar to the Raspberry Pi computer it connects to, the Aioli board will strike an effective balance between ease-of-use and flexibility, allowing our intended end user to quickly explore and deploy spatially aware sensor solutions in the field for their conservation projects.

Current Work

1) Discuss solution requirements with stakeholders through end user interviews. 2) Stand up project blog, contribution workflow, and tools for communication and easy project management. 3) Aggregate requirements and define success criteria. 4) Share sketches and initiate schematics on the project blog. 5) Identify interested and available early adopters. 6) Design the Aioli board!

Current Needs

The project could use additional technical expertise, recommendations, ideas, experience, and enthusiasm - all contributions are welcome!