Semi-Automated Traps for Insect Pest Monitoring

虫害对粮食作物造成严重损害，从而威胁到粮食安全。监测虫害对于限制其造成的损失至关重要，但是，这需要专业知识来识别虫害和密集的农场访问，而农民负担不起。计算机技术和图像分析的最新发展为开发用于自动虫害识别和定量的陷阱提供了机会。自动陷阱不需要人工专业知识，因为昆虫数据存储在计算机系统中，有助于识别特定的昆虫。该技术使用基于云的互联网技术，因此不需要频繁的实地考察。我们最近开发了一种半自动化的工具，能够识别蓟马，这是许多作物的主要昆虫。我们的技术有潜力为其他害虫开发类似的工具。为了更好地利用我们的技术，我们需要在一个农业国家测试和优化我们的诱捕器，在那里可以在田间条件下进行产品评估。我们选择巴基斯坦不仅是因为它是十大农业国之一，也是我们产品和服务的新兴市场。棉花粉虱和芒果实蝇是巴基斯坦的两种主要害虫，我们的技术可以应用于这两种害虫。本项目旨在确定优化和进一步开发我们的技术的可行性，以满足巴基斯坦农业部门的需求。该项目的主要目标是发展和加强学术合作，以支持我们的研发活动，确定种植者进行田间试验，并更好地了解巴基斯坦的商业和监管环境。该项目的成功将为新兴市场的新技术和业务扩张开辟新的机会。

Insect pests cause serious damage to food crops thus threatening food security. Monitoring insect pests is vital to limit the damage they cause, however, it requires specialist knowledge to identify pests and intensive farm visits, which farmers can't afford to do.Recent developments in the use of computing technology and image analysis offer opportunities to develop traps for automated insect pest identification and quantification. The automated traps doesn't require manual expertise as insect data is stored on a computing system which helps to identify a specific insect. The technology uses cloud based internet technology thus does not require frequent field visits. We have recently developed a semi-automated tool which is capable of identifying thrips, which is a major insect of many crops. Our technology holds potential for developing similar tools for other insect pests.To make a better use of our technology, we need to test and optimize our traps in an agricultural country where product evaluation can be done under field conditions. We have selected Pakistan as it is not only a top ten agricultural country, but also represents an emerging market for our products and services. Cotton whitefly and mango fruitfly are two major insect pests in Pakistan upon which our technology can be implemented.This project aims at determining the feasibility of optimizing and further development of our technology to meet the demand from Pakistan's agricultural sector. The key objectives are to develop and strengthen the academic collaboration to support our research and development activities, identify growers for field trials and gain a better understanding of commercial and regulatory landscape in Pakistan.The success of the project will open new opportunities for new technology and business expansion in an emerging market.