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IEMI Labs
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VisionDesign complete (stages 1-6), not built

RaidPost

The solar crop-raid flasher on your field's pole, made smart

Watches the gap where wild boar, nilgai or deer come in, names the animal on the post, fires a random light and siren pattern only when one is there, and rings a bell in the farmer's house. Light and sound only; a person is never sirened and an elephant gets lights and an early alert, never a siren.

Who buys it
Smallholders with 1-5 acres next to forest, scrub or nilgai country, and the FPOs and KVK or state schemes that subsidise crop deterrents.
Why it pays
Wild boar and nilgai take 10-40% of affected crops (ICAR paper); 2-4 posts per field replace a family member guarding all night (est.).
Target price
INR 11,999 (about $145) per post, first RaidBell free, no subscription (target)
First-minute wow
The bell rings twice in the house at 2 am: 'Wild boar, 2, east gap'. The post is already flashing a pattern it has not used this week.
See the CAD designConcept page
RaidPost concept: the idea and where each part goes
The concept. The CAD design is below, under Printable CAD.

What the research found

And how this design answers it

  • Timer flashers run all night and animals learn them → fires only on detection, a random pattern each time (240x less exposure per night, CAD report est.)
  • A flasher protects but nobody knows a raid happened → LoRa RaidBell in the house and a morning list by gap, species and time
  • Desperate farmers string illegal live wires that kill elephants and people → a light-and-sound-only alternative that never touches a fence
  • One post cannot guard a field edge (11 posts for 1 acre at 12 m, CAD report) → sold as one post per trail or gap; the flash still reaches 300-500 m
  • Elephants arrive in seconds at 12 m → elephant posts go on the forest edge 300-1,000 m out for 3-15 min of warning, lights only
  • Solar sized for all-night flashing → 0.76 Wh a day means a 3 W panel, not the 10 W first drawn

Use case

Wild boar at the east gap, 02:10

FarmerFamily at the houseFPO field officer

  1. 01Trigger: two boar walk into the east gap of a 2-acre maize field
  2. 02Detection: the PIR wakes the IR camera; the post names 'wild boar, 2' at 8 m
  3. 03Alert: a pattern not used in the last three runs fires; the RaidBell rings twice; a repeat within 10 min escalates to a full siren and a long ring
  4. 04Action: the boar leave; the farmer checks with a torch only on the long ring

Outcome: The night's maize kept without anyone guarding all night (est.)

How it works

Architecture

  1. 01

    Sense: 3 long-range PIRs wake an 850 nm IR-lit XIAO ESP32S3 Sense camera for 8 s

  2. 02

    Decide: an int8 classifier on the post names the animal; rules pick light, siren and bell by species

  3. 03

    Send: 10-byte encrypted LoRa P2P messages at 865 MHz to the RaidBell, no gateway and no cloud

  4. 04

    Tell: a buzzer in the house, a phone push when there is home Wi-Fi, and a morning raid list

Hardware

Real parts, buyable today

Bill of materials: about $171 per post at qty 1, about $75 at qty 1,000 (est.), plus a $26 RaidBell per farm.

BlockPartWhy this part
Wake3 x Panasonic EKMC1603111 PaPIRsMicroamp standby; front and both sides, 12 m lens
Camera + MCUSeeed XIAO ESP32S3 Sense with NoIR OV2640 + 2 x SFH 4715AS 850 nmNames the animal on the post at night; IR only during the look
RadioRAKwireless RAK3272S (RAK3172)1-3 km to the house in open farmland (est.), certified module
Deterrent12 V LED strobe beacon + 12 V piezo sirenRandom patterns; siren only for named crop animals
Power3 W panel + CN3058E + 2 x LiFePO4 32700 6 AhHeat-tolerant cells, 41 nights without sun (est.)

Mechanical

Printable CAD

4 parts, generated from code and checked as closed solids. Pick a part to inspect it, or download the STL files to print.

See the CAD parts render
RaidPost printable parts, rendered from the CAD
Render of the printable parts from the actual CAD. Not yet printed or photographed.

Loading the CAD…

Real CAD · drag to rotate · scroll to zoomReal CAD · swipe sideways

Open risks we are working on

  • Night classification is untested (T1); without it the post falls back to flash-only
  • PIR range on a boar on a hot night (small temperature difference) is unknown (T2)
  • The anti-habituation benefit is a hypothesis until an 8-week, 6-farm trial against a timer flasher (T3)
  • A $171 qty-1 BOM is above a Parabraksh's INR 10,000; rev B needs about $75
  • Katidhan could add a PIR; no farmer interviews yet (G1)

Design stage only: nothing on this page is for sale. Specifications and prices are targets.