Multiple Sensor integration: Detecting Pest Volatile Data on the Go!
During pest attack, plants can produce specific Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) fingerprints that can be used for pest identification and monitoring, if they can be detected with suitable sensor technologies.
Integrating multiple field-capable sensors into a single portable instrument promises cheaper and easier operating experience, while allowing to measure pest-specific VOCs. Different sensor technologies have different operating principles, with some returning changes in electric voltage, whereas others work with the principle of light detection or frequency changes. Sample handling, how VOCs are collected and sent to the sensors of choice also needs to be considered. Therefore, integrating different sensors into a single portable instrument requires custom built broad capability electronics.
During the PurPest project, printed circuit boards were designed to ensure voltages that are compatible with different sensor technologies and current energy consumption is being met by the instrument’s power supply. Once different sensors are integrated and functional, we are developing user-friendly software capabilities to interpret VOC signals from examined plants. After pre-processing required by the different sensors, the extracted information is fed to a machine learning model that will recognize patterns useful for determining the health status of the plant, effectively achieving a multi-sensor predictive system. At the moment, most of the work has been focused on Proton-Transfer-Reaction-Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS) and Gas Chromatography-Photoionization detector (GC-PID) technologies, for which smoothing, baseline-removal, normalization, and peak and compound detection methods have been developed.
Plant Pest Prevention through Technology-guided monitoring and site-specific control
Ongoing | 2023-2026
- Main funding source
- Horizon Europe (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- France, Germany, Slovakia, Italy, Portugal, Czechia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Great Britain, Switzerland