Feasibility of developing autonomous SmartTraps for remote monitoring Spotted Wing Drosophila in soft and stone fruit

This project will investigate the feasibility of developing an autonomous SmartTraps system for remotely monitoring adult Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), an invasive fruit pest. The feasibility of rapidly and accurately identifying the near microscopic Spotted Wing Drosophila males and females by image analysis in a compact, autonomous, non-saturating trap will be determined as the key preliminary step and technological challenge. Other key processes that will need to be developed for a full system beyond a successful outcome of this feasibility study include between trap communication, cloud based data aggregation and analysis, and web and app-based tools to integrate summary data from traps in order to provide decision support for growers. The trap will allow much closer and more reliable monitoring of SWD, and will be a significant advancement in pest specific monitoring technology which will have wide application for numerous pests globally.