RapidAIM Smart Trap – Real-time Pest Detection for Better Biosecurity

Traditional fruit fly pest detection involves manual, expensive and inefficient baited trap inspections and reporting by farm labourers/agronomists. This process causes delays, risks outbreaks and damage to valuable produce markets. Fruit flies are highly mobile, breed quickly and females can inject into fruit 100s of eggs a day. Larvae emerge and cause damage by living and feeding within the fruit. This leads to lost profits and food wastage. RapidAIM’s Smart Trap remotely, actively and effectively detects Fruit Flies early in their life-cycle allowing advanced pest management to take place whilst risk reducing the above disasters.

RapidAIM’s Smart Traps sensors are deployed on a grid array network across a fruit producing region. The Smart Trap combines RapidAIM's deep knowledge of insect behaviour with a proprietary hardware and software sensor technology inside the Trap to detect, identify and audit incoming insects. Alert/notification data is then transmitted over an ultra low power radio networks to the Cloud where it is analysis and then forwarded to a growers phone to an easy use RapidAIM App Dashboard. With RapidAIM deployment traditional pest surveillance and management risks and costs are significantly reduced.

With RapidAIM deployment are we starting to measure real and massive impact of this technology on Global Biosecurity. Social - Empower end users with real-time pest information to respond rapidly and reduce loss and costs - Improves work flow for focus on higher value tasks - More profit to our primary producers and regional communities Commercial - Fruit flies are the key threat to global fruit and veg export markets - Quicker, cheaper and more accurate quarantine of potential outbreaks Environmental - Targeted control following a RapidAIM detection means reduced insecticide use - Traps can be fitted with lures that are safe for Organic/pesticide-free production systems

The Smart trap has been designed with two sets of users and stakeholders in mind, human operators and of course the Fruit Flies. Operationally the trap is easily opened by two large paddle snap latches (using gloved hands). Once open, the trap can be safely loaded with pheromone lure, turned on, re-assembled and ready for deployment. The integrated tether allows the trap to be easily fastened around the Fruit Tree branches. Once in situ, the Smart Trap uses a combination of science and technologies to optimise its function. The overall trap form, bright yellow end caps and surface finishes have been specifically designed with Fruit Fly behavioural science to maximize natural attraction to the device. With the fly now close, the latest chemical engineering, pheromone technology takes over to specifically encourage the Fruit Fly into the trap, migrate across the sensor array and move inside the trap where they will eventually die allowing for later physical sample collection. The clear body not only provides a robust drop proof enclosure it allows for visual trap inspection and Fruit Fly audit without the need to open the enclosure.