Pest Alert Pest Monitoring System

SDP 2021
Team 22

Problem Statement

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, between 20 and 40 percent of food crops are lost each year to pests. Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, can help reduce this loss. One of the major problems facing IPM is that it requires a huge labor force to monitor pests.

Our system, Pest Alert, seeks to create an automated, low cost, low power, and low maintenance system for monitoring pests in comparison to its competitors. Our system will automatically notify farmers about possible infestations and the environmental states that led to it, by using traps, images, and sensors, and sending that information to a base station. On top of this, the system will be managing its own power usage with a solar panel and battery.

System Specifications

1. Low powered camera to capture images of pests on sticky trap uses < 5mW
2. Temp/Humidity sensor to collect surrounding environmental data and observe correlation between environment and pest accumulation
3. System must be operable in the range of of 0ºC to 50ºC
4. Battery life of 24 hrs on full charge: used to power sensors and should last at least 2 months (with charging) without interference
5. Solar panel should provide enough power for the whole system
6. Stop monitoring at night and operate in very low power mode because in the dark, camera cannot capture images and energy cannot be harvested
7. Traps should be replaced every two months, when they are full, or when they lose their stickiness
8. Low power communication between sensors and server using Bluetooth Low Energy < 100mW
9. Machine learning/analysis will be able to run on the base station