Develop an Acoustic Device for Red Palm Weevil Early Detection

Abstract

Early detection of the red palm weevils (RPW) is a major challenge in agriculture among all kinds of palm trees due to the nature of the insect and the difficulty to trace its infestation through the life stages associated with the tree life. Many methods have been applied for weevil detection such as X-ray diffraction techniques, fluoroscopy, and ultrasound. This research work aimed to develop a simple acoustic device for the early detection of the red palm weevil infestation; sound sensors and Arduino board were used for the recording process and some Pc programs have been used for extracting the recorded signal features under lab conditions and to evaluate the system in the field. Results under lab conditions indicated that Larva feeding sounds were a very good signature of the early recognition of RPW infestation. Many tests under field conditions were executed to record the sound inside 40 date palm trees once for 8 months, these date palm had not any symptoms of RPW infestation at the beginning, by using the developed system, the results revealed that there were only 8 date palm trees from 40 have not been detected by the system but the infestation appeared later on them with an error of 20% and efficiency 80% of the system. The developed device is a good tool for the early detection of RPW.