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Especially during the summer period, a significant amount of the population experience a health issues caused by the
stinging hair of oak-caterpillars. These health complaints are often caused by the skin irritation and allergic reaction when
the stinging hair comes in contact with the skin. Additional complaints include swelling and inflammation problems on eyes
and throats. The health complaints range from simple itching to serious allergic reactions that can last weeks.
Currently, the oak-caterpillars are removed using manual labor, which is labor intensive and time consuming. Cranes are
often deployed to reach to various parts of a tree for inspection and combat, which is a slow and an expensive process. In
general, since inspection of oak-caterpillars is done with bare eyes of the professionals and detection often occurs at a
later stage, significant number of people are affected already. Therefore, a new effective combating methodology is
needed.
The main goal of this project is to conduct feasibility study of the applicability of semi-autonomous aerial robots (drones)
for early stage detection and combat against oak-caterpillars. This innovative solution aspires to use smart aerial robots
that employ AI-based techniques for early phase and real-time detection of oak-caterpillars. Once the oak-caterpillars are
detected, a direct and selective combating resources will be applied. Within this project, the first proof-of-concepts will be
developed. The results of this project will be used to expand the existing network and formulate a bigger project to address
additional critical aspects in order to develop a complete oak-caterpillar combating drone.
The project will be executed with Research Group of Mechatronics at Saxion, together with the participating innovative
SMEs (DronExperts,Drone4Agro). The project will be facilitated by the Municipality of Enschede with respect to polices
and the Space53 cluster for networking and testing in operational environments
Especially during the summer period, a significant amount of the population experience a health issues caused by the stinging hair of oak-caterpillars. These health complaints are often caused by the skin irritation and allergic reaction when the stinging hair comes in contact with the skin. Additional complaints include swelling and inflammation problems on eyes and throats. The health complaints range from simple itching to serious allergic reactions that can last weeks.
Currently, the oak-caterpillars are removed using manual labor, which is labor intensive and time consuming. Cranes are often deployed to reach to various parts of a tree for inspection and combat, which is a slow and an expensive process. In general, since inspection of oak-caterpillars is done with bare eyes of the professionals and detection often occurs at a later stage, significant number of people are affected already. Therefore, a new effective combating methodology is needed.
The main goal of this project is to conduct feasibility study of the applicability of semi-autonomous aerial robots (drones) for early stage detection and combat against oak-caterpillars. This innovative solution aspires to use smart aerial robots that employ AI-based techniques for early phase and real-time detection of oak-caterpillars. Once the oak-caterpillars are detected, a direct and selective combating resources will be applied. Within this project, the first proof-of-concepts will be developed. The results of this project will be used to expand the existing network and formulate a bigger project to address additional critical aspects in order to develop a complete oak-caterpillar combating drone.
The project will be executed with Research Group of Mechatronics at Saxion, together with the participating innovative SMEs (DronExperts,Drone4Agro). The project will be facilitated by the Municipality of Enschede with respect to polices and the Space53 cluster for networking and testing in operational environments.