Anson He is building a wildfire detection device that can be launched on drones to monitor remote forests. His work at Bayes Studio in Vancouver could make fire prevention more accessible and cost-effective.
Devices used to detect and prevent wildfires in remote forests are expensive, but the one that Northeastern University student Anson He is making will be cheaper to launch on drones over dense woodlands.
He is pursuing his master’s degree in computer science at Northeastern’s Vancouver campus. In January, he started a co-op at Bayes Studio — a Vancouver company that uses robotics and machine learning to make forest fire detection tools.
He is helping to produce a device that uses less expensive components than others on the market. His role is core to the small company’s success: He is in charge of prototyping the hardware and coding the software for what Bayes calls its Edge device.
Other team members work on integrating artificial intelligence into the device’s functionality and connecting the device to servers.
“When I first joined the company they had some ideas for the Edge device but they didn’t know what kind of sensor they wanted,” He said. “So I proposed hardware and we ordered the components. Right now, I’m writing the entire code base for this device.”
The product is on schedule for launch at the end of the year and hopefully will be used by fire prevention agencies to detect developing blazes deep in remote forested areas.
He will complete his co-op in May and is on track to finish his master’s degree in December.
Mounted on a drone, the device will pass over targeted areas, sending data collected by a camera and sensors back to customers. Bayes’ products are tailored to integrate into existing safety systems. Clients include power companies, forestries, insurance companies and government agencies.
“Hardware can be expensive, and the overhead on the business side can be very expensive,” He said. “We can run our very accurate model on very low-cost hardware that is not open source.”
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, He worked as a product engineer at two companies in China. While studying at Northeastern, he learned about the co-op opportunity at Bayes and jumped at the chance to get more experience as an embedded hardware engineer.
In addition to providing co-op placements, Bayes partners with Northeastern on capstone projects on the Vancouver campus, where students work on research projects at the end of their second year.