Microcontroller based pest management system
Anshul Mittal
Netaji Subhas Institute of Tech. (NSIT)
New Delhi, India
anshulnsit@gmail.com
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract-In a country like India, every year, tones and
tones of food grains to the tune of Rs.20000 million are
destroyed by the numerous pestilential causes. Every year
India loses 15 % cotton and tea yield due to pestilence.
This happens primarily due to lack proper forecasting
facilities and inadequate precautionary and preventive
measures. The ignorance of the farmers further accrues
this loss, as they are not aware of the cheaper and effective
solutions available to them.
This paper presents a very innovative and effective
solution that would solve this problem timely and hence
result in reducing the losses to the agriculture industry.
A microcontroller based insect pest detection and
management system has been described that would
retrieve, process and communicate data and information.
This system, a very cost effective and reliable technique,
easily provides information based on the ground surveys
by subsystems, to the required control center, which then
takes the necessary control measures.
It relieves the farmer of worrying about the pestilence,
instead it shifts the onus to the controlling authorities to
effectively predict and take the effective steps to prevent
the pestilence related problems. The reliable forecasting
measures can help in reducing the problem to a great
extent and prevent the unexpected food shortages. It may
augment the national economy. Thus it becomes
incumbent that an effective solution is introduced that is
both robust and can withstand extreme weather and
temperature variations, thus making their installation and
operation quite feasible.
INTRODUCTION
The microcontroller system presented here is a very efficient
device to counter the threat posed by insect pests in almost
all the areas of the world, particularly India. In this paper the
various components of the system, the structure, the
working and the cost considerations are stated and analyzed.
It will thus be seen that this system is a very useful method
that would require immediate attention for its
implementation.
The paper would discuss and provide solutions to the
existing shortcomings in the pest management and thus
Second International Conference on Systems (ICONS'07)
0-7695-2807-4/07 $20.00 © 2007
Aseem Singh
Netaji Subhas Institute of Tech.(NSIT)
New Delhi, India
aseem.nsit@gmail.com
delineate all the major achievements of this innovative
technique.
First of all, a basic knowledge of the insect pests that infect
the crops of India are listed and it can be seen that most of
these “land” pests can be done away with the use of the pest
management system.
Various types of insect pests and their characteristics
The most common insect pests that affect the production of
food grains in India are as shown [5].
The crops they infect and the times of infection have also
been stated.
They have been classified in these categories-
Tissue-borers-Caterpillar bore into stems and pupate
within; the central shoot withers and produces a dead-heart
active throughout the year, except between April and May
and between October and November.
Gundhi bugs- Nymphs and adults suck the milky sap of
tender grains; affected ear heads stand erect like normal
ones, but without any grain formation. Active during May to
November, Paddy gall fly, Pachdiplosis oryzae Wood
Mason - Maggots attack the base of the growing-point and
produce long, tubular silvery galls (silver shoots) active
during May to September-November.
Rice hispa : Dicladispa armigera (Olivier) (=aenescens
Baly)- Small blue-black beetles, covered with spines; the
grubs make long winding tunnels into leaves, whereas adults
scrape the chlorophyll, affected leaves turn whitish and
membranous and ultimately dry up.
Blue leaf beetle Leptispa pygmaea Baly- Found in
association with hispa, specially in Karnataka Paddy
caseworm
Nymphula depunctalis Guenee- A small white moth, with
yellow and dark specks on the wings.
 SENSOR FOR DETECTION
In a recent publication by R.W. Mankin and J.R. Fisher (at
the Fourth Symposium on Agroacoustics) it has already
been presented that sounds generated by insects feeding
underground are typically 2-200ms in duration and have
significant energy between 0.5-1.5 kHz. The ideal
sensor/amplifier system for these applications would be
highly sensitive below 1.5 kHz to capture the energy of
weak signals, and would enable filtering of signals below
≈0.7 kHz to facilitate signal/noise discrimination. The
sensor would be shielded from airborne background noise
and, because sound travels only short distances in soil, the
waveguide would be easily insertable near where the insects
are expected.
Acoustic detection system
Acoustic signals were monitored [1] using SP-1 sensor that
contained a 20-cm-long, 0.6-cm-diameter stainless steel
waveguide attached to a custom-designed, PZT-5 (lead
zirconate titanate) piezoelectric crystal sensor system with a
40-dB integrated preamplifier. The sensor housing was
shielded to reduce airborne background noise. The spectral
range of the sensor-preamplifier system was approximately
1-50 kHz. The waveguide was inserted into the nursery
container and the acoustic signals were monitored for 3-min.
periods using an AED-2000 acoustic detection system [6].
Fig.1 shows an integrated computer environment of
underwater acoustic detection system, CALYPSO
Second International Conference on Systems (ICONS'07)
0-7695-2807-4/07 $20.00 © 2007
THE SYSTEM
(DETAILS AND SPECIFICATIONS)
Now that the data has been acquired, it is now required to
transmit it to a control station. In the remote places situated
far off from the stations the use of satellite communication
can be of immense workability.
A note of consideration regarding this data: - The data
obtained is to be processed to find the type of insect pest
infecting the crop. Thus for a different type of a pest, we can
identify the kinds of pesticides that would be necessary to be
made available to the farmers.
There are two methods to process this data:
(1) The data is acquired, not continuously, but over a certain
times of day, preferably during that time when the pests are
more active. This data is stored in a memory device by first
encoding the data into bit-form and then using a Memory
storage element.
(2) The second viable option would be to acquire data at any
instant of the day and then transmit the data using a
transmitter as soon as it is acquired. This would do away
with the usage of a memory element, but it would then be
necessary to employ a transmitter. Considering the cost
factors, the appropriate decision can be taken as to which
method would be of more utility.
o This data when received by the control station is to be
processed. This would involve the identification of the
types of pests (if any) in the required area and the extent
to which the pestilence has spread (this may be done by
matching the data from different sources). The accuracy
of the system plays a crucial role in this endeavor.
o Now it may be done that the system is equipped with a
solar powered LED, which keeps glowing if working
properly. Now it would be the job of the farmers to
make sure that when the system gets faulty, they inform
the authorities to take the necessary steps. Al this
cooperation makes this whole process a smooth-
functioning one.
o The system should also carry an on/off switch so that
the farmers can switch them on or off once or twice
during the day. This would ensure less battery/power
usage.
o The times of switching the system on and off should
vary for each day of the week to gain the data for
different types of insects. This is somewhat necessary
as the insects may be active at different periods of the
day.
 o Thus, instead of going to the markets to purchase the
pesticides for certain pests (which can be inaccurate
owing to the mere human analysis), it now becomes
quite an easy option for the farmers to just monitor the
system by just observing the LED and make the right
judgment. That too for just toggling of the system
switch.
o If for some matter, the system is not working properly,
the control station would come to know of it. Now, it
can also be said that the farmer might have forgotten to
switch on the system. True, but if for prolonged periods
no data is received from a particular region, there
should be some effort on the part of the authorities to
ask some nearby operator to just ask the farmer about
the status of the system. Upon the confirmation from
the farmer via. Telephone or even an interrupt signal
issued by the microcontroller system, the authorities
should provide a new system for that area.
This kind of a system would enable to shift the technical
concerns of pest control from the farmers who are mostly
illiterate in a country like India to the more responsible
controlling authorities that would process and transfer
information as and when it is required.
Fig.2 shows the implementation of the system. The
systems in the field can communicate either with a
satellite or with a central control station.
Second International Conference on Systems (ICONS'07)
0-7695-2807-4/07 $20.00 © 2007
COST CONSIDERATIONS
The statistics show that the losses incurred by the Indian
agriculture industry due to pestilence are huge and hence
there is a desperate need for the implementation of a system
that can work towards reducing this menace to some extent.
The system mentioned in this paper proves to be of excellent
applicability as the cost of developing such a system is not
that large considering the annual losses due to insect pest
infection. The reason that one of the systems can be
employed over a large region of land, the cost factors would
be of minimal consideration. Even if the costs are not
recoverable within a year, which is unlikely, but ultimately
in the future use the system would ensure that the losses of
the industry would be reduced to a great extent.
FUTURE SCOPE OF THE SYSTEM
¾ The system can be applied over a large area of field
and even in remote areas. For such a consideration,
many systems can be used which can communicate
with each other and a master system. It would then
become the task of the master system of that area to
transmit the data of that large area to the
controlling station or the satellite, as the case may
be i.e. The farmers are relieved of any concerns
whatsoever about the system status.
¾ It can be combined with the other systems (GPS
system or the newly deployed Galileo system),
which can track the movement of the swarms of
pests that move from one area to another. This can
be very useful in taking precautionary measures.
¾ This system can be fully automated whereby the
master system controls the subsystems and decides
the time of switching on or off and the time of data
assimilation. This is of immense utility, as the
required personnel would know how to make the
system active. Thus the dependency on the farmers
for the acquisition of the data would be eliminated
to a great extent. Thus the work becomes a more
reliable venture.
As regards to the accrual of the utility of the device we can add a
solar pest killer or ultraviolet pest repellant to the systems in the
field.
They may be individually controlled by the farmers or through
the main station. Solar pest killer is a solar powered and packed
with rechargeable batteries and consists of ultra bright- white
and purple. They can be used for killing the mosquitoes and
other pests.

CONCLUSION
Thus it is seen that this pest management system using a
microcontrolled mechanism is a very apposite apparatus in
this area of agriculture and technology. And considering a
country like India where education is still a distant
phenomenon in many rural areas and agriculture is the basis
of subsistence, the application of such a system that is
controlled by some intelligent operators would ensure that
the benefits reaching the farmers would be immense.
Second International Conference on Systems (ICONS'07)
0-7695-2807-4/07 $20.00 © 2007
Thus, it can be very strongly suggested that this system is a
very important technology for the existing generation of
industry and would be of a vast scope for innovation and
improvement in the future.
REFERENCES
[1] Mankin, R.W, J.R. Fisher, Current and potential uses of Acoustic
Systems for detection of soil insect infestation.
[2] Dhaliwal. G. S. and Heinrichs (Eds) 1998. Critical issues in insect pest
management, Common wealth Publishers, New Delhi.
[3] www.iacm.forth.gr
[4] www.krishiworld.com
[5]http://krishiworld.com/html/insect_pest_crops4.html
[6] (www.aedconsulting.com/aed-2000.html).
[7] Magical microwaves: the exploitation of the century
James,J.R.