Autonomous monitoring station for agricultural insects-pests

• Grant number: 17/22531-9
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Duration: March 01, 2019 - March 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Bárbara Mirelli de Melo e Castro
• Grantee: Bárbara Mirelli de Melo e Castro
• Host Company: AFH Soluções Tecnológicas Ltda
• CNAE: Consultoria em tecnologia da informação ; Pesquisa e desenvolvimento experimental em ciências físicas e naturais
• City: Campinas
• Pesquisadores principais: Andrei Grespan
• Associated researchers: Angel Pontin Garcia ; Claudio Kiyoshi Umezu
• Associated grant(s): 19/19552-0 - Autonomous agricultural insect pest monitoring station, AP.PIPE
• Associated scholarship(s): 19/05831-4 - Autonomous monitoring station for agricultural insects-pests, BP.TT; 19/06153-0 - Autonomous monitoring station for agricultural pests, BP.TT

Abstract

Currently, agricultural insect pests of the order Lepidoptera, family Noctuidae, cause losses in the order of billions of reais the most important agricultural crops of the country. Its monitoring is still done manually by sending technicians to the field for visual inspection or by well-established methods such as the “breathing”. Regardless of the method used, this process can be delayed when compared to the population dynamics of this family, since the effective monitoring of eggs, caterpillars, pupae and adults of these species are determinant for the successful implementation of management strategies integrated pest management. The present proposal establishes the analysis and validation of an innovative solution, consisting of an autonomous monitoring equipment (trap), with the capacity to identify and quantify the species captured in the field. This is an interdisciplinary research and lies at the intersection of agriculture, computing and entomology by encompassing the design and implementation of a technology for automated pest monitoring. In the proposal will be presented the operation of the equipment (traps), its system of communication via internet protocols of things, besides the process of identification and classification of the species to inform in real time the level and the dynamics of plagues in the field. It is hoped that several positive impacts may arise from the success of this initial proposal. Be it in the environmental sphere (more efficient applications of pesticides with the consequent reduction of pollution of water and soil), agriculture (with the extension of the useful life of varieties and technologies involved in both cultivars and agricultural pesticides) or in the economic sphere, with the reduction of losses generated by the late decision to control these pests. (AU)