A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details SUSTAINABLE CONTROL OF INFESTATIONS USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MODELLING By FAITHPRAISE, FINA OTOSI Submitted For the Degree Of Doctor Of Philosophy ENGINEERING & DESIGN RESEARCH SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND INFORMATICS UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX BRIGHTON UK MAY 2014 FAITHPRIASE FINA DEDICATION To the almighty God, for his mercy, strength and wisdom to reason out solutions rationally. To my spouse, Mr. Bassey Otosi Faithpraise, for his love, support, dedication, encouragement and tolerance for the successful completion of this research work. To my beloved children (Princewill, Godswill, Favour and Success) for all their sacrificial love and effort. To my Late Father, Mr Mbang Opla for dedicating his time to persuade me to desire the pursuit of higher academic degrees. DEDICATION Page i To God be the Glory, Great things he has done: Take a look at the world of insects, what lesson do you learn? It is only a fool that will say “there is no God” If insects could obey the laws of nature, scientifically we called them nuisance. Pause, ponder over your life! How will you rate your relationship with God and human? Remember now your creator, the almighty God. Faithpraise Fina Otosi All knowledge with no reverence to the almighty God through Jesus Christ is vanity as the preacher had said “what profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?” Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 Faithpraise Fina Otosi SUMMARY Page iii UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX FAITHPRAISE, FINA OTOSI – PHD ENGINEERING SUSTAINABLE CONTROL OF INFESTATIONS USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MODELLING SUMMARY A sustainable pest control system integrates automated pest detection and recognition to evaluate the pest density using image samples taken from habitats. Novel predator/prey modelling algorithms assess control requirements for the UAV system, which is designed to deliver measured quantities of naturally beneficial predators to combat pest infestations within economically acceptable timeframes. The integrated system will reduce the damaging effect of pests in an infested habitat to an economically acceptable level without the use of chemical pesticides. Plant pest recognition and detection is vital for food security, quality of life and a stable agricultural economy. The research utilises a combination of the k-means clustering algorithm and the correspondence filter to achieve pest detection and recognition. The detection is achieved by partitioning the data space into Voronoi cells, which tends to find clusters of comparable spatial extents, thereby separating the objects (pests) from the background (pest habitat). The detection is established by extracting the variant and distinctive attributes between the pest and its habitat (leaf, stem) and using the correspondence filter to identify the plant pests to obtain correlation peak values for the different datasets. The correspondence filter can achieve rotationally invariant recognition of pests for a full 360 degrees, which proves the effectiveness of the algorithm and provides a count of the number of pests in the image. A series of models has been produced that will permit an assessment of common pest infestation problems and estimate the number of predators that are required to control the problem within a time schedule. A UAV predator deployment system has been designed. The system is offered as a replacement for chemical pesticides to improve peoples’ health opportunities and the quality of food products. Faithpraise Fina Otosi SUMMARY Page iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research work has been a very exciting, enjoyable and rewarding experience and I have been blessed to work with so many gifted and determined people. My unreserved thanks to my husband the pillar of my strength, the air that I breathe, the key to my success and the treasure of my life for his sacrificial love, for doing what most men cannot do, he sacrifices his joy for my happiness and his strength for my weakness, the architect of this research dream. My greatest thanks to my treasured supervisors Prof Christopher R. Chatwin and Dr Rupert Young for their supervision and support, open door policy, affluence and wealth of knowledge. The advancement of this project would not have been possible without their support. I am very grateful and feel proud to be supervised by them. My gratitude goes to my mother for teaching me to be self-dependant, an experience that motivated my dreams. My sincere thanks to Dr Ayomide Coker and Pastor (mr & mrs) Akinde for their support and prayers. I sincerely appreciate my contemporaries in the Department of Physics and my collaborators in the Department of Zoology and Environmental Biology, the University of Calabar, Nigeria My humble and sincere thanks to my colleagues in the University of Sussex- Engineering & Design Research group for ideas and brain storming. Faithpraise Fina Otosi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Page v TABLE OF CONTENTS 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION _______________________________________________________________ i DECLARATION ______________________________________________________________ ii SUMMARY ________________________________________________________________ iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS _______________________________________________________ v TABLE OF CONTENTS________________________________________________________ vi LIST OF TABLES ____________________________________________________________ xii LIST OF FIGURES __________________________________________________________ xiii ACRONYMS ______________________________________________________________ xvi LIST OF PRINCIPAL SYMBOLS ________________________________________________xviii CHAPTER -1- SUSTAINABLE PESTS CONTROL SYSTEM _______________________________ 2 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM OF CROP PESTS ____________________________ 2 1.2 WHY THE STUDY OF CROP PESTS __________________________________________ 2 1.3 CHEMICAL PESTICIDES __________________________________________________ 3 1.3.1 THE EFFECT OF PESTICIDES ON HUMAN HEALTH _______________________________________ 4 1.3.2 SOLUTION TO PESTICIDES USAGE ___________________________________________________ 4 1.4 METHODS OF CROP PEST DETECTION ______________________________________ 5 1.5 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES _________________________________________________ 7 1.6 BACKGROUND METHODOLOGY FOR CROP PEST DETECTION ____________________ 7 1.7 ACHIEVEMENTS _______________________________________________________ 9 1.8 THESIS ORGANIZATION _________________________________________________ 9 CHAPTER -2- PESTICIDE IMPLICATIONS: ECONOMICS & HEALTH OF A NATION (NIGERIA). _ 13 2.1 INTRODUCTION ______________________________________________________ 13 2.2 CONSEQUENCES OF PESTICIDES EXPOSURE ________________________________ 13 2.3 PESTICIDES IMPLICATIONS ______________________________________________ 16 Faithpraise Fina Otosi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 2014 2.3.1 ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMANS HEALTH IMPACT_____________________________________ 16 2.3.2 FOOD COMMODITIES PESTICIDES IMPACT ___________________________________________ 16 2.3.3 FOOD POISONING IMPACT ________________________________________________________ 17 2.3.4 WATER CONTAMINATION ________________________________________________________ 18 2.3.5 SOIL CONTAMINATION ___________________________________________________________ 18 2.3.6 CONTAMINATION OF AIR, AND VEGETATION _________________________________________ 19 2.4 ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL IMPACT OF PESTICIDES _________________________ 19 2.5 ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF REDUCED PESTICIDE USE ________ 20 2.5.1 ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PESTICIDE REDUCTION _______________________________________ 21 2.5.1.1 MONEY BACK ______________________________________________________________ 21 2.5.1.2 GAIN IN CROP LOSSES ________________________________________________________ 21 2.5.1.3 SECURITY OF LIFE AND FOOD ___________________________________________________ 21 2.5.1.4 HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT ______________________________________________________ 21 2.6 CONCLUSION ________________________________________________________ 22 CHAPTER -3- CROP PEST DETECTION & RECOGNITION _____________________________ 24 3.1 CROP PEST DETECTION & RECOGNITION OVERVIEW _________________________ 24 3.2 CROPS PEST K-MEANS CLUSTERING ______________________________________ 25 3.3 PLANTS PEST FILTER FORMATION __________________________________________ 28 3.3.1 CORRESPONDENCE FILTER FOR CROPS PEST RECOGNITION _____________________________ 30 3.4 MEASUREMENT METHOD ________________________________________________ 32 3.4.1 PEAK-TO-SIDE LOBE RATIO (PSR) ___________________________________________________ 32 3.4.2 PEAK-TO-CORRELATION ENERGY (PCE) ______________________________________________ 33 3.5 CONCLUSION ________________________________________________________ 34 CHAPTER -4- UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE (UAV) DATA SAMPLING SYSTEM & POPULATION ESTIMATION ______________________________________________________________ 36 4.1 UNMANNED