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Senecio Compact State-of-The-Art
Robotic Sex Sorting
Senecio has been developing a proprietary technology, providing mosquito factories, laboratories and governments with an affordable, compact solution for robotic handling, sorting and loading of mosquitoes in large scale.
The solution can also be combined with the traditional pesticides approach, for an integrated pest management approach, resulting in an effective solution to the mosquito problem
AUTOMATED BIOMOSQUITO™ FACTORY
Patent Application WO2018134828, WO2018134829, PCT/IL2018/050738
Releasing Sterile Mosquitoes turned out to be one of the most effective tools in fighting mosquitoes. Commercial size campaigns require the manufacturing and release of millions of male only mosquitoes a week.
Senecio Robotics combine a modular approach, introducing automation, image processing and Deep Learning, to automate entire production line, into a complete automated BioMosquito™ Factory.
After completion of our initial phase, encouraged by our preliminary results, and our secured IP, we are completing a modular robotic cell with an initial target goal to demonstrate a throughput of million per day. These cells can be combined to scale as required.
Step 1: Automated Pupa Sorting
Today, the most commonly used technique for sorting the male pupa from the female pupa is based on a mechanical sieve, manually operated, with very low throughput.
Automating the process is essential, Senecio IP covers a novel approach to automate this step.
This is a stand alone station, which can be utilized in parallel to Senecio adult sorting stations in order to reduce the number of females entering the subsequent stages.
Step 2: Classification & Sorting
Automated Hatching Compartments
The Senecio novel solution is based on a modular approach, enabling the increase in sorting capacity as per the throughput required.
We use advanced Deep Learning to classify the mosquito sex upon their emergence, during which stage the mosquitoes are relatively stationary.
A continuous flow of mosquitoes enter the hatching station for classification. Being modular, the number of stations is set in order to reach the required rate per day.
Male mosquitoes only, are directly emerged into release cartridges.
Automated Classification - Adults Stage
Reaching extremely high accuracy, Senecio IP also covers the classification & sorting of adult mosquitoes under cold conditions as they are stationary as well.
Senecio novel approach, solved one of the biggest challenges for the manipulation of mosquitoes in order to expedite the identification process and reaching high accuracy, ensuring mosquitoes are standing during which their gender features are always seen by the classification camera (avoiding problems associated with mosquitoes laying on their sides for example).
Mosquitoes are conveyed towards classification and robotic sorting stations, in which classical image processing and Artificial Intelligence such as Deep Learning are used.
Each individual mosquito is recorded for back tracking, explored and identified as a male or female.
Once classified, females are removed using robotic arms, or zapped by laser as demonstrated by the image on the right.
Once only males are left on the conveying system, they are moved for packaging on the next station.
Step 3: Automatic Packaging
At the exit of the BioMosquito™ Factory, release cartridges filled with sterile male mosquitoes are packed together, ready to be shipped and released by any of our release systems : Drone, ground vehicle or aircraft.
Our cartridges are designed both for cold storage for very large quantities and for non-cooled systems, usually associated with ground release campaigns.
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