BCMS® VENTUR-E · AI optical detection for wind farms
Birds around your turbines:
In Italy, continuous wildlife monitoring is written into wind farm authorization conditions, and the condition often names a device. BCMS® VENTUR-E answers it with species classification below about 1 km once trained on the site's footage, day and night, a video record of every event, and a stop decided on a tracked trajectory, never on presence alone.
The prescriptions we meet often name a unit on every turbine, a radar, or a painted blade, so the comparison comes first.
Cameras stand on lattice masts beside the turbines, so nothing is mounted on the machine and a mast can be re-aimed or relocated.
Coverage is sized to the layout and the terrain at the site survey, from a few masts rather than a unit on every turbine.
Each bird is named to species or family, with the count, where a device that reports size class alone cannot tell you which bird.
The stop is decided when a tracked bird's velocity vector carries it into the rotor, never on a schedule, and the command goes to turbine control where integrated.
Each detection is recorded with video and metadata, so the record the authority can audit is the event itself, not a counter.
Species, count, position, height, speed, direction, and risk index per event, exportable as JSON for your ecologists' own analysis.
BCMS® runs alongside the device your authorization names, or replaces it in the compliance file where the authority accepts the equivalence.
| Observer surveys | Per-turbine device | BCMS® VENTUR-E | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Species identification | partial: Daylight, sampled days | partial: Size class only | yes: Species, below about 1 km |
| Night coverage | No | partial: Limited | Yes, thermal cameras |
| Continuous, all year | No, sampled days | Yes | Yes |
| Site-wide coverage from few masts | partial: Limited | No, one per turbine | Yes |
| Stop decided on a tracked trajectory and species | No, a manual call | partial: Varies by model | Yes, where turbine control is integrated |
| Video evidence per event | No | partial: Limited | Yes |
| Raw trajectory export and API | No | partial: Limited | Yes, JSON, REST API |
The device column describes the per-turbine class as its vendors specify it; the surveys and carcass searches your monitoring plan requires stay in place.
Three gaps every wind developer recognizes, in their own units.
The authorization asks for continuous monitoring, and the compliance verification asks for the record. The observer days in your plan stay; they cannot show what crossed the rotor zone on the nights nobody was on site.
Your prescription names a device, a radar, or a painted blade. Until the authority accepts an equivalent, the order cannot take effect and the camera count is not fixed.
Turbines idled for bird risk leave a stop, not an event: which bird, which trajectory, which machine. The event is reconstructed afterwards, by hand, if at all.
Self-assessment
See the complete event, not just the alert.
Detection log
A representative event record, rendered in the console's own fields.
Detected
Single object entering the monitored volume, air track opened.
Classified
Bird of prey, confidence 0.94. Risk scored against the rotor zone: high.
Trajectory assessed
Velocity vector carries the sphere around the bird into the rotor of WTG-02.
Stop condition met
Logged with the detection ID; the command goes to turbine control where integrated, elsewhere the alert reaches the people you name.
Cleared
Track left the zone. Video and metadata written to the archive.
Each record rolls into the portal your team works from and into the annual report authored by biologists each January, nothing reconstructed by hand.
Detection runs automatically; the response follows the rules your team sets.
01
Passive optical and thermal cameras on masts beside the turbines watch the rotor zone and its approaches, day and night, thermal covering the dark hours.
02
Species classification below about 1 km, once trained on the site's footage. Which bird it is, and how many, is what the stop decision rests on.
03
Follow position, height, speed, and heading as the bird moves through the site.
04
Test the trajectory against the configured turbine-risk area.
05
Where turbine control is integrated, the stop command goes to the controller; elsewhere the decision raises an alert and is logged as a high-risk event. Deterrents, where installed, activate by species and position.
06
Every event is recorded with video and metadata, building the continuous record the condition asks for and the file your consultant works from.
One sensor set answers more than the bird question, and what else moves on the site, on the ground and in the air, is logged the same way.
Every tracked trajectory can be exported as JSON through the documented API, point by point, with time, position, height, speed, and heading. Your ecologists analyze the raw record themselves, and the same archive feeds the annual report.
The cameras also see the ground: mammals on access roads and at rest are detected, and the model can be trained on the animals your site needs to watch. Light aircraft and drones over the site are logged as non-cooperative objects, in the same record as every bird.
A clearer basis for technical evaluation, starting with what reviewing bodies ask.
BCMS® decides on species, number, and trajectory together; where turbine control is integrated the stop is commanded and logged with its timestamp, the turbine, and the detection ID, so your SCADA's stop log can be reconciled against it. Threshold changes are agreed with your consultant, because the criteria sit in your compliance file.
Noise limits
Whether an acoustic deterrent fits inside your site's noise limits, and whether it is in your authorization, is checked at the survey before one is proposed.
Where integrated, commanded and logged with the detection ID.
Species-specific, triggered by the classification, checked against your noise limits.
Over documented APIs, activated selectively and logged.
Masts of three to four meters on concrete bases beside the turbines, never on them: blade vibration defeats long-range detection, and an independent mast keeps the whole rotor volume in view. Positions, wind loading, grounding, and lightning protection are fixed at the site survey, once the foundations are in.
Masts reach the on-site server over fiber or radio, powered from the farm's auxiliary supply or from solar panels at the mast, with a cabinet and an industrial switch at the connection point. Compute is dedicated to BCMS® on hardware you own or delivered turnkey, and where turbine control is integrated the path is a documented REST API limited to the signals agreed for your site.
Hardware provenance is documented, the IP cameras are manufactured in Portugal, certificates run on an internal PKI, and remote support access is authorized by you per session. Where the BCMS® network meets your control network is drawn at the survey with your OT security lead.
In Italy, environmental authorizations for wind farms carry conditions on birds, checked by the ministry or the region at the stage the condition sets. BCMS® fits inside that framework as the operator's chosen monitoring system, with the continuous record the condition asks for and the annual report agreed with you.
BCMS® has been written into the compliance files of authorized wind farms in Italy by the developers' own consultants, and one of those farms has operated with it since 2025. Two questions reviewing bodies have raised, the file answers: why the cameras stand beside the turbines and not on them, and which published work backs the system.
Our data protection policy is in force, and GDPR documentation is available on request; server location stated per deployment.
Deployment record, anonymized but specific.
Before any visit, we state which components the reference site runs against what your configuration would ship, so you compare what you would actually buy.
Bring your authorization conditions and your layout; we bring the site-survey checklist.
None of them waits for the towers to be up.
No obligation to continue after the trial
The system runs on your farm against strict KPIs agreed in advance, over a term spanning the seasons in which the species your condition names are active. If they are met, it converts to acquisition or a service contract; a farm still under authorization meets the condition from commissioning instead.
Purchase plus annual professional services, inside a tender or by direct award where a framework applies. If your procedure needs it, the order takes effect only when the authority clears the file; the tender and compliance pack below drops into a specification.
BCMS® as a service rather than as equipment: hardware, software, maintenance, and support in one recurring fee.
What a deployment involves, timed to your compliance ruling and your commercial operation date.
Covered on site: turbine geometry, the species your condition names, existing monitoring data, land, power, and connectivity per mast. Output: a statement of work with camera count and coverage per mast, and the signed technical proposal for your consultant's file.
Where the condition names a device, the equivalence is argued in the compliance file now, through your consultant, and the camera count can follow the ruling. Cameras are ordered early: the manufacturer's lead time is about two months.
Masts on concrete bases, fiber or radio links, no turbine work, about a month before commercial operation. A local system integrator typically installs, under THE EDGE COMPANY's instructions and quality assurance.
Detections from the day the system is powered up, then fine-tuning on your site's own avifauna. The turbine-control test, where it applies, is scheduled with the turbine manufacturer during commissioning, and operator training follows.
Technical sheet, layout and range drawings, siting and land statement, turbine-control interface statement, equivalence annex.
Night and thermal footage, trajectory-against-rotor examples, a sample stop-decision record, a sample annual report.
Hosting options, hardware provenance, PKI and access policy, turbine-control interface scope, maintenance and warranty terms, contract structures.
Each pack is sent on request until the files are published here.
Where turbine control is integrated, the control signals, stop and restart logic, interfaces, and tests are defined for that deployment, and the stop is commanded and logged with the detection ID. Where it is not, the same decision raises an alert and is logged as a high-risk event.
The count follows the layout, the terrain, the species in your condition, and whether night coverage is required, and it is fixed at the site survey with a coverage statement per mast. Where your condition names a device, the count can also follow the ministry's or the region's ruling on the file.
No. Detection, classification, and the stop decision run unattended. Where turbine control is not integrated, the alert reaches the people you name at the survey, with the event record; output is designed to be read by your site team and your ecologists, not by specialist operators.
The file is yours; what you receive from us is an annual report authored by biologists, delivered by the end of January for the previous calendar year: species, counts by risk class, the turbines most exposed, seasonality, flight heights and headings, and the high-risk events logged. Your team and your consultant work from the portal every day, with every event, its video, and its raw trajectory.
THE EDGE COMPANY does, under the professional services contract: parts and labor for replacements are covered, and we hold service agreements with the camera and server manufacturers and keep spare units. After the contract the system keeps functioning and the license stays in force; follow-on support is contracted separately. Where your own team will carry out no maintenance, a full-service form exists: an extended warranty for parts and corrective maintenance, plus a long-term maintenance agreement with spare parts on a price list.
Three routes are offered today: try-and-buy against agreed KPIs, direct procurement with a tender-ready pack, or an operational lease. Which applies is your procurement determination; the routes section above has the detail.
A sphere of configurable size is drawn around each tracked bird, and the stop is decided when the bird's velocity vector carries that sphere into the rotor and the species and number cross the threshold set for your site, with the command going to turbine control where integrated. Not on a schedule, and not on presence alone. Sphere size and thresholds are set per site and stated in the technical proposal.
Where turbine control is integrated, BCMS® publishes the stop decision on a documented REST API, limited to the signals agreed for your site and described in the statement of work. A track is validated within about half a second. The time from a stop decision to a stopped rotor depends on the turbine controller, so it is stated per site, not as a generic figure.
On lattice masts of three to four meters, terrain permitting, on above-ground concrete bases beside the turbines, with no work on the machine. Each mast reaches the on-site server over fiber, with a shallow conduit trench, or over a radio link. Power comes from the farm's auxiliary supply, where the turbine manufacturer and your electrical contractor agree the connection point, or from solar panels at the mast, and the survey settles which, per mast. A cabinet with an industrial switch sits at the connection point.
Only what the survey draws. Where the BCMS® network meets your control network, and whether a vendor router is permitted near it, is settled with your OT security lead; access runs on an internal PKI, each remote support session is authorized by you, and footage is never published externally. Hardware provenance is documented, and the IP cameras are manufactured in Portugal. A 50 Mbps link covers remote maintenance and updates, or THE EDGE COMPANY installs its own router.
The ministry or the region checks each condition at the stage the condition sets, in practice before the site opens or before the farm enters service. It is the developer who evidences compliance, with the file your consultant builds around our signed technical proposal. BCMS® supplies the continuous record and the annual report that file points to.
Yes, where the authority accepts the equivalence. Your consultant argues it in the compliance file, with our signed technical proposal and the equivalence annex from the tender pack, and the authority decides case by case. If your procedure needs it, the order can be made conditional on that ruling.
The system keeps operating, with performance that scales with visibility. In degraded conditions it alerts the operator and marks the coverage gap in the record, so the file shows when monitoring was reduced rather than thinning silently. Mast wind loading is specified for your site at the survey.
Only where the survey finds room for them. We check your site's noise limits and your authorization before proposing one. Where an acoustic deterrent is installed, it is triggered by the classification, species-specific, never on a timer, and the deterrence profile is tuned over time on activation-versus-outcome statistics.
Every point of every track, as JSON through the documented REST API, with time, position, height, speed, heading, species, count, and risk index per event. Nothing passes through a vendor before your ecologists see it, and the annual report draws on the same archive.
Put your turbine coordinates on the table: thirty minutes with a technical colleague, not a sales presentation.
