Scientists at Mendel University in Brno have developed a prototype robot that identifies insects harmful to agricultural crops and spays just enough of the right chemical to kill them. Already a “greener” solution than the blanket spraying of insecticides, it is learning to identify infestations before they fully erupt. Researchers at Mendel University have been growing rows of tomatoes and peppers in large cloth boxes since early spring, in a greenhouse with automatic temperature and humidity controls for achieving optimum growth.
It did not take long for a variety of hungry insects to appear. Libor Lenža, a member of a research team comprised of specialists from the agriculture, biochemistry, and technological faculties, says through artificial intelligence, the prototype robot is steadily improving its ability to recognize a variety of plants and pests.
“We had to have a huge database of images with both the plants and pests in different states of development. Our students then had to manually find the individual insects in the images, mark them, describe whether they were adults, larvae, or eggs. And based on that, artificial intelligence can learn to recognize what is what.”
The prototype robot, being developed in collaboration with other European specialists, can now recognize three insects that feed on the two plants in their greenhouse – tomatoes and peppers. The machine has a moveable arm with a camera jutting out of its torso and insecticide spray containers on its back.
It is programmed to move around the greenhouse stopping at each box of plants for a thorough inspection at regular intervals, and with each round adds to its database of knowledge, says Libor Lenža, a biochemist with a computer science background. “The robot knows what kind of pest it is, how intensely it is present on a given plant, or in a given row, and applies the appropriate amount and type of product accordingly. This greatly reduces the amount of chemicals used in agriculture.”
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