We know agricultural pests such as birds that bring damage to farmers’ plants. An elephant most people think they are cute can cause a huge amount of damage to the plantation. They are so big and smart and hard to be scared off when they are eating fruits. Now, an Australian research team from CSIRO that work in the field of scarecrow technology has developed an AI scarecrow to deal with this big trouble.
Photo Credit: CSIRO
A standard scarecrow cannot effectively stop pets eating fruits in the plantation, which is annoying to fruit owners. When they notice the scarecrow does not give any threats to them, they will come back soon to enjoy their food. However, the Australia-made AI scarecrow is a truly troubleshooter for the problem. The machine is loaded with various sounds that simulate a plenty of sounds made by wild animals. When the scarecrow discovers an incoming pest, it will start to scare off the pest with a sound of bawling or irritating tones and in-built flash light. The AI can detect what kind of animals coming and work out quickly adaptive scarecrow strategies. “What constitutes a ‘scary’ sound is an ongoing area of species-dependent research.” says senior researcher Ashley Tews.
This won’t just help people. For example, elephants often make conflict with human in India because of crop raiding. Vivek Thuppil from the University of Nottingham says that 400 people and 100 elephants die each year. Thanks to the invention of the AI scarecrow, it can save many elephants. However, smart elephants will get used to the scaring system. The artificial intelligence still needs to learn more patterns and strategies to stop pest raging. “Within a few encounters, elephants just treated the sound as a stationary threat,” says Thuppil. These animals just walked around the device.
News Reference : https://www.newscientist.com/article/2153665-whats-the-best-way-to-scare-an-elephant-use-an-ai-scarecrow/