This software is used to setup a Raspberry Pi as an Wildlife Systems node.
Add the WildlifeSytems APT repository to your system
Install ws-node.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ws-node
/etc/ws/node.json records what the node is deployed as, which nothing else on
the machine can know. All fields are optional and the file itself is optional:
a node without one behaves exactly as before.
{
"deployment_id": "unp-pond-01",
"site_name": "Urban Nature Project — Pond Zone",
"valid_from": "2026-03-14T09:00:00Z",
"location_source": "survey",
"vertical_datum": "EGM96"
}| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
deployment_id |
which deployment this node belongs to. sr copies it into every sensor reading |
site_name |
human-readable location name |
valid_from |
when this deployment started, RFC 3339 UTC |
location_source |
how the position in /etc/geolocation was obtained, e.g. survey, gps, estimate |
vertical_datum |
datum the altitude is measured against, e.g. EGM96 |
An example is installed at
/usr/share/doc/ws-node/examples/node.json. It is not installed to /etc/ws/
because a shipped file there would become a conffile carrying a placeholder
deployment onto every node.
This is deliberately separate from /etc/geolocation, which holds the node's
position and is owned by pi-geo. Position is a property of the machine;
deployment identity is a property of the project. A node can be moved without
being redeployed, and redeployed without being moved.
- Initial development of the node software was done as part of the Leverhulme Trust funded Automated Acoustic Observatories project at the University of York.
- Additional development was undertaken as part of the Urban Nature Project at the Natural History Museum, London.