Europe plans to monitor and preserve insect populations – with INESC TEC’s support

A low-cost technology that integrates image-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect insects and identify potential threats to their existence. MOXOH was developed by INESC TEC and presented at a working meeting of InsectAI COST, an action promoted by the European COST programme that aims to accelerate the development of image-based and AI-assisted solutions to support the monitoring and preservation of insects.

InsectAI – Using Image-based AI for Insect Monitoring & Conservation is the name of the COST action, featuring INESC TEC; this endeavour aims to address the global sharp decline of insect populations – a phenomenon with a significant impact on ecosystems. How? Using AI to monitor species and understand trends, mitigate potential threats, and design preservation strategies. In this sense, InsectAI COST promotes interaction, discussion and knowledge-sharing initiatives between researchers and other actors in these areas.

One of the examples was the recently organised workshop in Cyprus, during which INESC TEC presented the MOXOH solution. “We’re talking about a One Health Monitoring Gateway – a device that is used to connect two different networks – that applies low-cost technology to autonomously acquire periodic images and sensor data on the ground, which makes it possible to detect insects. The technology synchronises all information with a server using 4G and LPWA (low-power, wide-area network) communications”, explained Pedro Moura.

According to the INESC TEC researcher, MOXOH resorts to an artificial vision SVM (support-vector machine) to detect known insects and to identify potential threats “in human, animal and environmental contexts”. “These technologies are crucial to increase our knowledge about insects: from the outset, to understand population trends and identify patterns – a task in which images can help a lot. This allows us to define strategies for their preservation”, he said.

The meeting took place in late June in Cyprus. Participants had the opportunity to attend a workshop that addressed topics like the analysis of data collected by solutions like MOXOH, or the most pressing environmental issues that said technologies can address. InsectAI COST brings together more than 200 members from 40 countries, promoting workshops, conferences, scientific missions or hackathons, towards accelerating scientific and technological development and generating contributions to the definition of public policies in Europe.