A System Using Artificial Intelligence to Detect and Scare Bird Flocks in the Protection of Ripening Fruit

Abstract

Flocks of birds may cause major damage to fruit crops in the ripening phase. This problem is addressed by various methods for bird scaring; in many cases, however, the birds become accustomed to the distraction, and the applied scaring procedure loses its purpose. To help eliminate the difficulty, we present a system to detect flocks and to trigger an actuator that will scare the objects only when a flock passes through the monitored space. The actual detection is performed with artificial intelligence utilizing a convolutional neural network. Before teaching the network, we employed videocameras and a differential algorithm to detect all items moving in the vineyard. Such objects revealed in the images were labeled and then used in training, testing, and validating the network. The assessment of the detection algorithm required evaluating the parameters precision, recall, and F1 score. In terms of function, the algorithm is implemented in a module consisting of a microcomputer and a connected videocamera. When a flock is detected, the microcontroller will generate a signal to be wirelessly transmitted to the module, whose task is to trigger the scaring actuator.

Passive optical detection and classification of flying objects

“…It is used in systems ensuring the scanning of airspace around airports and the prevention of collisions of aircraft with birds. Several works also deal with its use in the field of environmental research and bird monitoring [1], [2] or in systems aimed at protecting crops and vineyards from bird flocks [3].…”

“…A classifier, pre-trained on a suitable set of sample images, analyzing various significant features extracted from the processed images [1], [2], can be used effectively. Another possibility is the use of convolutional neural networks [1], [3]. This article focuses on the design of an algorithm for detection and classification of flying elements in the sky that could be used in some of the above applications.…”