Mosquitoes spread disease, but this is how AI is biting back Posted on : Jan 27 - 2020

Machine learning and satellite comms are helping identify mosquitoes and their infection potential.

Mosquitoes aren't just a nuisance. Along with their itchy bites, they spread serious diseases, like malaria, dengue or zika, which, as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has pointed out, kill more people every day than sharks have managed to do in an entire century.

A Yale report released last year also suggests that climate change is going to make the problem worse. So, having early detection systems to promptly deploy preventive controls is crucial to protecting people.

The Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) in Catalonia, Spain, has started to use artificial intelligence (AI), sensors, and satellite communications to automate the process of trapping mosquitoes and classifying them according to species, sex, age, and their potential for causing infection.

Traps are not a new control technique. In many countries, manual field trap inspections are conducted by trained researchers or technicians.

However, these inspections are time-consuming, costly, and classifying mosquitoes accurately by eye requires a great deal of experience, Dr Sandra Talavera, researcher at the Animal Health Research Center IRTA-CreSA, tells ZDNet.

That is one of the reasons why IRTA, owned by the government of Catalonia, has decided to adopt the Vectrack system, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program.

The first test phases with traps are being carried out by the Barcelona Public Health Agency (ASPB), which is responsible for monitoring and controlling mosquitoes in the Mediterranean city's urban environment.

Vectrack has been developed by Irideon, a Spanish-German company headquartered in Spain, which sells sensor-based products for various sectors. The system enables researchers to combine traditional sampling processes with remote sensing and modeling techniques to develop risk maps.

The traps are similar to those already in use but they add optoelectronic sensors, enabling remote and automated counting and classification of the targeted mosquitoes "according to the frequency of flight and shape of their body", Talavera says.

Fellow researcher Dr Carles Aranda explains that mosquitoes are attracted to the traps because the devices "emit carbon dioxide as an entree and then suck the specimens inwards so that they do not escape". View More