Raspberry Pi-Based CatBot Monitoring Stray Cats and Solving Bird Problem

TapTechNews August 25th news, in recent years, there have been many projects using Raspberry Pi to assist animals. For example, scientists use Raspberry Pi to monitor the number of bear herds, and even someone has released a guide on using Raspberry Pi to make a pet detector. Now there is another project about cats - the maker and developer Michael Suguitan has made a stray cat monitor named CatBot.

The function of this system is quite simple, but its design is rather complicated, and there is an additional function. The working principle is to use a camera connected to Raspberry Pi Zero to monitor a bowl of cat food that Suguitan prepares for the nearby stray cats. When a cat is detected, Raspberry Pi will take a picture and send it to the specified mobile phone.

But the cat food also attracts birds, which can be dangerous if they eat the cat food. To solve this problem, Suguitan has added an additional function to monitor the birds. When a bird is detected, Raspberry Pi will use an actuator to tap on the window.

According to TapTechNews, the Raspberry Pi Zero provides the motherboard for the camera monitoring, however, this is not the only Raspberry Pi used in this setup. Suguitan has also added a Raspberry Pi 5 to interact with Raspberry Pi Zero and handle the image recognition part of the project, and this Raspberry Pi 5 is also responsible for sending text message pictures.

Suguitan has generously made the entire project open source, so anyone can view all the source code of Raspberry Pi 5 and Raspberry Pi Zero on GitHub.