Ecologist · Environmental Technologist

Ecology, electronics and the systems in between.

I’m Tom Armstrong. I design and build monitoring systems for ecologists, researchers and environmental consultants — embedded firmware, field sensors, acoustic data and the software that makes results legible.

Explore selected projects View experience
  • Conservation Technologist at OekoFor
  • Technical Consultant with UNE / REED Lab
  • Based in Germany
TA monogram: Tom Armstrong's initials joined by a sensor trace and measurement node

Capabilities

Building monitoring tools

I turn ecological questions into practical monitoring systems — from field hardware and data pipelines to visualisation, analysis and interpretation.

Passive acoustics

Recording systems, detection-review workflows and interfaces for long-duration acoustic recordings.

Environmental sensing

Microclimate, soil, spectral and ultrasonic sensors integrated for remote field monitoring.

Embedded hardware

ESP32 firmware, custom PCBs, power management and wireless communication for field devices.

Monitoring software

R Shiny applications, data pipelines, APIs, maps and dashboards designed around real monitoring tasks.

Applied AI

Grounded use of automated acoustic detection and machine learning within reviewable ecological workflows.

GIS and remote sensing

ArcGIS, spatial ecology and remotely sensed data for vegetation, habitat and landscape questions.

Selected projects

The ecoPi monitoring dashboard on a laptop
Active development OekoFor project

ecoPi — autonomous acoustic monitoring

An intelligent audio recorder with on-device AI species recognition, near real-time results over the mobile network and a web dashboard for review and validation.

Problem

AI-assisted, long-term acoustic monitoring

My role

Hardware R&D, front-end tools and interfaces

Read the project case study
Illustration of FieldMesh sensor nodes spread across a solar farm, with a FieldHub collecting their readings
Active R&D UNE / REED Lab

FieldMesh — environmental sensor network

A wireless sensor network that measures microclimate at many points across a site, keeps every reading on site and brings the data into a web dashboard.

Problem

Fine-scale conditions across solar landscapes

My role

System design, firmware, PCBs, cloud and dashboard

Read the project case study

On the workbench

A few notes from projects I’m actively developing, testing and learning from.

View all workbench notes

  1. FieldMesh

    1. FieldNode — Sync and Power-Off Fixes

      • Readings now sit on a fixed UTC clock grid, so nodes no longer drift into the sync window together
      • An alarm that comes due during a wake is now handled, not wiped
      • A node never powers off over a pending RTC alarm
      • A node that loses its clock listens for the hub in short bursts and recovers by itself

    2. FieldHub V2 — Sync Sweep Results

      • Two nodes against Hub V2, with a hub boot delay injected from 0 to 85 s
      • Original timing: both nodes joined up to a 30 s delay, neither from 35 s
      • Hub woken 45 s before the slot: the edge moved to 70 s, as the timing model predicts
      • A missed window costs time, not data: queued readings upload at the next one

    3. FieldHub V2 — Sensor Bring-Up

      • Four I²C sensor ports verified with an SHT40, including at 400 kHz
      • ADS1015 inputs within about 1% of a reference meter, no crosstalk
      • Reed input works, but its GPIO moves in the next revision
      • Still to test: ESP-NOW, RTC backup retention, longer wake cycles

    4. FieldHub V2 — Scaling the Network

      • First test: controlled hub boot delays, two nodes against Hub V2
      • Goal: measured node capacity instead of theoretical estimates

  2. Auris

    1. Auris — Choosing Parts for the Audio Front End

      • Every fitted part in the audio front end has an exact LCSC part number, test pads aside
      • Signal-path capacitors are C0G, and bias and DC-blocking capacitors are tantalum
      • One ceramic that didn't belong on a bias node was caught and replaced
      • Next: the same check for the power and LTE sections

Experience

  1. 2025—present Conservation Technologist · OekoFor Hardware and software development for ecoPi, including R Shiny applications, monitoring interfaces, data pipelines and field hardware.
  2. 2025—present Technical Consultant · UNE / REED Lab Distributed environmental sensing with custom ESP32 hardware, low-power firmware, wireless transfer and device-management tools.
  3. 2023—2024 Conservation Field Technician · BCM Bush regeneration, species identification, bird surveys, acoustic deployments and an automated detection prototype.
View full experience and education

Contact

Have a monitoring problem to work through?

I’m open to thoughtful conversations about monitoring technology, software, passive acoustics and environmental sensing.

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