A preliminary investigation of various signal phenomena generated by termite infestation

Abstract

Subterranean termites are major urban pests in Indonesia and lead damage to wooden structures and buildings. Termite pest management involves two sections: prevention and control. The most crucial part of termite control is to detect termites; however, due to their cryptic behavior, the termite infestation evidence on wooden structures is difficult to detect visually. When termite infestation is active and wood damage is occurring, the distinction of various signal phenomena are released including moisture content, temperature and acoustic emission. The identification of these phenomena becomes the basic foundation for designing a future termite detection system. The aim of this study is to identify various signal phenomena generated by termite infestation. In this investigation, the pine wood, as the medium for termite infestation, was divided into two groups, i.e., the wood infested by 220 termites (‘infested’) and the normal wood as a control (‘uninfested’). Each signal phenomenon generated by termites was observed and analysed to produce six pieces of information, i.e., (a) moisture content; (b) temperature; (c) four information of acoustic emission such as energy, entropy, peak frequency and zero moment power. Based on statistical analysis of Duncan multiple range test (DMRT; two-way ANOVA, P ≤ 0.05), it was revealed that the information that can distinguish significantly between infested and uninfested wood are moisture content, temperature, energy, entropy and zero moment power. Finally, various phenomena (i.e., moisture content, temperature and acoustic emission) can be embedded and integrated in the sensing technology of termite detection.