Mosquito transferred diseases are on the rise in many areas around the globe. And while mosquito traps are not a new control technique, new AI technologies are helping to accelerate new preventive methods in the trapping process. Traditional manual field trap inspections conducted by trained researchers and technicians are time-consuming, costly, and the process of classifying mosquitoes visually requires a significant amount of field experience. This is why IRTA, owned by the government of Catalonia, has decided to adopt the AI-powered Vectrack system. The story below provides the details of a very interesting and valuable use case.
Mosquitoes aren’t just a nuisance. Along with their itchy bites, they spread serious diseases, like malaria, dengue or zika, which, as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has pointed out, kill more people every day than sharks have managed to do in an entire century.
A Yale report released last year also suggests that climate change is going to make the problem worse. So, having early detection systems to promptly deploy preventive controls is crucial to protecting people.
The Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) in Catalonia, Spain, has started to use artificial intelligence (AI), sensors, and satellite communications to automate the process of trapping mosquitoes and classifying them according to species, sex, age, and their potential for causing infection.