Metric learning unveiling disparities: A novel approach to recognize false trigger images in wildlife monitoring

Wildlife monitoring using camera traps is a vital tool for ecosystem health assessment. However, camera traps often face high rates of false-triggered images (empty shots), significantly impacting data processing efficiency. This study proposes a metric learning-based method for false-triggered imag...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rui Zhu, Enting Zhao, Chunhe Hu, Jiangjian Xie, Junguo Zhang, Huijian Hu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-07-01
Series:Ecological Informatics
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574954125001001
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Summary:Wildlife monitoring using camera traps is a vital tool for ecosystem health assessment. However, camera traps often face high rates of false-triggered images (empty shots), significantly impacting data processing efficiency. This study proposes a metric learning-based method for false-triggered image recognition. By integrating K-means clustering for sample selection and a triplet loss function for model optimization, the approach effectively distinguishes subtle feature differences in false-triggered images. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves 80.17% Accuracy, 79.79% Recall, and a reduced false positive rate (FPR) of 19.48% on test datasets collected from various regions. Compared to traditional models, it improves Accuracy and Recall by 5.5% and 5.96%, respectively, while reducing the FPR by 5%. On embedded device Jetson Nano, the method achieves a single-image inference time of just 0.076 s, showcasing its potential for deployment in resource-constrained environments. This research addresses challenges related to high intra-class diversity and inter-class similarity in false-triggered images, offering a novel solution to enhance wildlife monitoring efficiency. The code is available at https://github.com/hzl-bjfu/AIPL/tree/master/RFTI.
ISSN:1574-9541