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idam: Automating Integrated Pest Management
Agriculture is one of man’s oldest and most vital industries. Since humans have grown crops, we have faced the problem of disruptive insects that reduce crop yields. Farmers began using pesticides in the early 20th century to combat these pests. While effective, overuse of pesticides wastes money, hurts the environment, and necessitates further pesticide use as the pests mutate. Modern farmers try to minimize pesticide use whilst maximizing yields. This art/science is called Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
The central problem of IPM is determining how many pests are present and thus how much pesticide is needed. The current method is to place sticky tapes at regular intervals in the crop field and visually inspect them every couple weeks to see how many dead bugs are on the tape. Based on the findings, the farmer will often hire an IPM consultant to determine the proper course of action.
In this project we develop an IoT device and expert system to replace the tapes and the IPM consultant. The device consists of a modified tape, raspberry pi, and camera which relays raw images to the cloud for ex-situ image processing and analysis. We also develop a front end for the farmer to view the data.