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>> So I'm Dr Cyril Renaud, I'm a lecturer in photonics in the
Department of Electronic Engineering at University College London,
and about a year ago, the London Zoo contacted us to work
on developing a prototype to measure UV,
the amount of UV light Komodo dragons are taking along
every day.
>> So Komodo dragons are incredible reptiles that come
from four different islands in Indonesia.
This guy's Raja, he's been here for about five years.
He weighs about 55 kilos.
He was captive bred in Miami.
Dragons get incredibly large, they can grow
to about 100 kilos, so they're incredibly tough animals.
They're pretty much solitary in the world.
They hunt things as big as water buffalo and quite often,
they'll eat a lot of carrion as well.
UV's absolutely crucial for all reptiles.
UV that they get from sunlight is used
to synthesise D3 in the skin.
It's that D3 that they use to regulate calcium, metabolism,
and also a few other factors,
such as just general running of the immune system.
With dragons, it seems incredibly important
that they get a lot of UV; some reptiles seem
to need a small amount and some need a hell of a lot.
What we don't know is quite how much dragons actually need,
which is, again, is one
of the reasons why we're doing this project.
There's a big problem with dragons in captivity where,
especially in females, they get to around to six, seven,
eight years of age and they start depositing,
especially depositing calcium down in their blood vessels
and that can lead to a whole host of problems
and quite often haemorrhaging and, in most cases, death.
>> For the past year we have Third and Second year students working
on this prototype using detectors developed in the US
that detect the amount of UVB that lizards can detect.
Actually, us as human can detect UVB too -
that's when you get a suntan, for example -
and it helps us to process Vitamin D.
So the prototype the students have developed is using two
of those sensors. One of them is just detecting the amount
of light and the other one is measuring what's called the UV
index, it gives you an idea
of how dangerous your UV exposure is.
>> We're actually giving Raja exposure to UV
in basically three different ways.
We've got UV lamps here, just on the right hand side.
If you look above you, you can see
that the whole roof is a special material called ETFE
and that actually lets UVB penetrate.
And we also actually let Raja go outside
so he actually gets exposure to natural sunlight,
which really is probably the best form of UV he can ever get.
>> These prototypes include the two sensors I talked
about a bit earlier,
one being to detect the whole amount of UV light coming
from the sun or the UV lamps,
and the other one, the UV index.
In this box, it's -- we have two batteries to power it,
standard double A batteries,
and if I open it you can see the inside of the box.
Inside of the box, I have an SD card, which is here
to collect all the data measured by the two sensors.
Two amplifiers, to increase the amount
of signal detected by the sensors, that are then sent
to a small computer, which is that chip here.
That then translates the data to be written on the SD card
and as well, processes it so that we know
at what time the data is taken up.
As you saw a bit earlier, this little LED lit up;
any time it's lit up, it means that the data is taken
on board by the SD card.
And as well, this circuit is -
because there is a small computer in there -
it's clever because it's going to switch off
itself any time it doesn't take data.
So it doesn't use a lot of energy.
This is -- the purpose of not using much energy is
that it needs to stay for weeks on the Komodo dragon
so that we can take a lot of data in one go,
and we can monitor all its UV intake and then be able to find
out, by measuring and taking blood sample,
the amount of Vitamin D it's processing,
compared with the UV intake. Then we can know how healthy the
dragon is and have an idea
of how much UV we should give the dragon in captivity.
>> Once this project is finished, we are hoping
to have a highly miniaturised prototype
with wireless transmission - which is one
of the specialties of UCL Electronic Engineering -
that would be possible to put on most lizard species that are
in captivity across the country, or even across the world;
there has been interest as well from a zoo in Holland or even South Africa.
This actually shows how much UCL is involved
to use its technological knowledge
within the London community and helping all
across actually the country to develop new technology,
new devices that can have an impact.
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