I guess Topher & Co. deploy WiFi throughout the area where the sensors are deployed in the trees? The connection between the sensors is interesting in itself. Is it a mesh network with distant trees communicating to others nearby who talk to others so as to get to one or more masters that have a connection to the Internet to send alerts to the rangers' mobile phones? Or does each sensor communicate directly to a master that sends out the alert to the rangers?
In either case, there might be some interest in seeing how good the connection is between the sensors and master, as a function of time of day, weather (rain, wind), signal strength etc., and also detecting whether the sensor is still working, for example if sensor solar cells or batteries fail, sensors get dislodged by animals, or even loggers attack the sensors (climb trees or simply shoot at the sensor).
In such a case, PingER could be installed in the masters and each master could probe its sensors via pings (provided in a pinger.xml list) on a regular basis to determine the quality of the connection to its sensors. The master could also gather the data from the sensors to look at the historical data for patterns. In this model the PingER software only needs to be installed in the masters, the sensors simply respond to pings. Also, the master does not need to be an Android, it could be any Linux host such as a Raspberry.
This might be an interesting, new, but different collection/analysis etc. of PingER data that would be aimed just at the Rainforest project, and could be interesting to Amity and the Rainforest people, and does not need much help from SLAC.
Email to Amity
"We (Bebo, Les and Umar) think that the PingER software on the Android operating system (and Android devices) can play a valuable role in the collection of PingER data and open up new possibilities (especially for mobile devices) for the analysis of that data. However, given the level of expertise, the status of support at SLAC and other PingER collaborators now and in the future, and the availability of Topher*, it will be necessary for Amity to fully take the lead on this research, development/testing, and support. Should you wish to discuss this in more detail, then we are open to a zoom meeting."