Red Palm Weevil (Rynchophorus Ferrugineous, Olivier) Recognition by Image Processing Techniques

Problem statement: Red palm weevil is the most destructive insect for palm trees all over the world. This research is part of developing an automated wireless red palm weevil detection and control system. The focus for this study was to develop red palm Weevil recognition system which can detect RPW in an image and can be used in wireless image sensor network which will be part of entire proposed system. Approach: Template based recognition techniques were used. Two general recognition methods i.e., Zernike and Regional Properties and an algorithm combining them were used. Besides that, a novel technique for detecting Rostrum of RPW named as ‘Rostrum Analysis’ was proposed and used for recognition, a conclusive algorithm based on all three techniques was also proposed, 319 test images of RPW and 93 images of other insects which found in RPW habitat were used. Results: It was found that both general techniques i.e., Regional Properties and Zernike Moments methods perform reasonably in recognizing RPW. The algorithm based on both these methods performs better than individual methods. The Rostrum Analysis outperforms better than both the earlier methods and proposed algorithm using all three analytical techniques gives best results among all discussed techniques in recognizing RPW as well as other insects. Conclusion: The most balanced and efficient recognition technique is to use the proposed conclusive algorithm which is combination of Regional Properties, Zernike Moments and Rostrum Analysis techniques. The maximum time for processing an image is 0.47 sec and the results obtained in recognizing the RPW and other insects are 97 and 88% respectively.