Can Sensors for Insects Help Save Crop Life Throughout the United States?

Farmers in the eastern U.S. received bad news last week for future protection of their crops because bats are dying in large numbers due to white-nose syndrome. Researchers from the University of California, Riverside think they can help.

The new development of an inexpensive wireless sensor could help famers effectively and cheaply protect their crops. Farmers in the U.S. and across the globe have issues protecting their crops from insect infestation, which can destroy crop life and spread diseases. The use of pesticides is expensive and also relatively unhealthy for consumers, so farmers largely rely on the food chain to take care of business.

Bats were, and still are, an excellent source of crop and plant protection. They are known to be predators of various crop and forest pests including moths, cucumber beetles, flies, gnats, and mosquito-like insects. Their contribution to pest control is estimated to save the U.S. agricultural industry at least $3 billion per year and can reach up to $50 billion. But bats are facing a disease epidemic as the spread of white-nose syndrome has killed over 5.5 million bats since 2006.

So farmers must look elsewhere for protection, as biologists predict a higher number of deceased bats within the next year. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have built an inexpensive wireless insect sensor that can track insect flight behavior patterns with up to 99% accuracy. The team developed an algorithm that can compress big insect data to more effectively manage the pest control.

"We set out not knowing what was possible," said Eamonn Keogh, a computer science professor at UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering, in this UC Riverside news article. "Now, the problem is essentially solved. We have created insect classification tools that can outperform the world's top entomologists in a fraction of the time."

The insect's movement is tracked once it passes the sensor's laser beam, which causes a small light fluctuation. The unique movement of the particular insect is then filtered by the sensor's electronic board and transferred into a digital sound recorder, then downloaded into a computer. The goal is to collect as many flight behavior patterns as possible so the classification of different species can be greater.

The team is working to deploy their sensors in Mali to test their effectiveness in an area where insects spread malaria and Dengue fever by infesting crops. You can read more about the noninvasive wireless sensors here.