Development of an Elephant Detection and Repellent System based on EfficientDet-Lite Models

Human-elephant conflict (HEC) has become a major concern in Sri Lanka that results in many unfortunate human and elephant deaths. Methods that are currently in place to mitigate HEC, such as electrical fences have undesirable consequences resulting in both human and elephant casualties. In this paper, we have proposed a method based on computer vision and deep learning that has a promising potential for detecting and repelling elephants without endangering the lives of elephants or humans. We have used EfficientDet-Lite models that provide a good compromise between accuracy and performance in order to be usable with a resource-constrained device like a Raspberry Pi.