AI helps to detect invasive Asian hornets - University of Exeter

Artificial Intelligence can be used to detect invasive Asian hornets and raise the alarm, new research shows.

University of Exeter researchers have developed VespAI, an automated system that attracts hornets to a monitoring station and captures standardised images using an overhead camera.

When an Asian hornet visits, VespAI can identify the species with almost perfect accuracy – allowing authorities to mount a rapid response.

Asian hornets (also known as yellow-legged hornets) have already invaded much of mainland Europe and parts of east Asia, and have recently been reported in the US states of Georgia and South Carolina.

The UK sits at the edge of the European invasion front, and with ongoing yearly incursions there is an urgent need for improved monitoring systems.

“Our goal was to develop something cost-effective and versatile, so anyone – from governments to individual beekeepers – could use it,” said Dr Thomas O’Shea-Wheller, from the Environment and Sustainability Institute on Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall. “This study tested a prototype version, and the results were encouraging. VespAI shows promise as a robust early warning system to detect Asian hornet ingressions into new regions.”

VespAI uses a compact processor to operate, and remains dormant unless its sensors identify an insect within the size range of a hornet.

The paper, published in the journal Communications Biology, is entitled: “VespAI: a deep learning-based system for the detection of invasive hornets.”