This camera stream is being broadcast from Ely, MN inside a black bear den. The bears in this den, Lily and her 1 year old cub, Hope, are part of a research study by Dr. Lynn Rogers of the North American Bear Center, www.bear.org.

PixController, Inc. designed, manufactured, and installed a custom camera system for this project. The bear den location is in a very remote area without power or Internet access.

The camera system we designed is battery powered and solar charged, and the video is being streamed to the Internet via wireless 3G cellular link. The Cellular 3G hardware and data plan are being provided by Verizon Wireless.

  

There are (2) cameras connected to the system. One camera is a small camera that is placed inside the bear den. This is a day color/night infrared (IR) camera which can see in complete darkness. The second camera is installed outside the den and is a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera, which will be used to watch and follow the bears if they come out of the den site.

Only one camera will be streaming at a time, and these cameras can be selected and remotely controlled by members of the Bear Center or PixController, Inc. Engineers. The camera system is also equipped with custom electronics which will monitor the systems battery supply. Daily emails are sent to the engineers with systems status information in order that we can keep the stream running smoothly throughout the project.