Robot Death Machine Battles Invasive Spotted Lanternflies by Scrubbing Off Eggs in Pittsburgh

A robot death machine was created by students from a university in Pittsburgh to hunt, scrape off, and squash the eggs of invasive spotted lanternflies.

Invasive Spotted Lanternflies

The spotted lanternfly may appear harmless, but since being unintentionally imported to the nation over ten years ago, these voracious insects have been known to demolish harvests and caused over half a billion dollars in damages to a variety of fruit trees.

Students at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University have created an alternate strategy in the shape of a robot death machine.

The current major concept is to introduce many species of wasps into the mid-Atlantic habitat to hunt and consume the lanternflies.

Robot Death Machine vs Eggs

Its name is TartanPest, and it employs a variety of tools and components to autonomously locate and eliminate lanternfly egg masses.

It begins with a set of cameras for traversal and an electric tractor for mobility.

Additionally, this computer vision is continually looking for egg masses that might contain up to 50 lanternfly eggs.

A robot arm with a rotating brush attachment moves in for the kill once it locates a mass on a tree, rock, or even a rusty metal surface, cleaning the eggs off the surface.

Spotted lanternflies are now concentrated in the eastern part of the country, but they are expected to spread over the entire country, according to Carolyn Alex, a TartanPest team undergraduate researcher. 

She said that future savings will increase if this issue is invested in today.

To find the egg masses, certain deep-learning algorithms that were trained using a big-picture data set are in use.

Although the robot may function autonomously, it still needs a person nearby to address any problems as they emerge.

Therefore, it's probably not the most effective method of getting rid of spotted lanternflies; however, it is still a step towards eradicating an invasive species, Engadget reported.

Robotics Challenge

The team created the robot death machine as part of the 2023 Farm Robotics Challenge by Farm_ng, therefore it is currently only a prototype design.

Farm-ng and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources have teamed up to bring about good change in the American food chain.

The challenge is a robotics competition accessible to groups of graduates and undergraduates alike from US universities and community colleges that want to develop creative ways to use a Farm-ng robot to carry out and automate a necessary task, as per Farm_ng.

Also Read: NYC Pest Control Project for Invasive Species Kills Woodpecker Instead 

Fighting Off Invasive Spotted Lanternflies

Invasive species or their egg spawn should be squashed right once, but the US Department of Agriculture encourages reporting occurrences as well.

The USDA advised checking outside goods, especially those that would be brought within, for spotted lanternfly egg masses as locals are getting ready for winter vacations.

Scrape any egg masses into a plastic bag with a zipper and add hand sanitizer before zipping the bag up and throwing it away appropriately.

Additionally, it's crucial to check trees and plants for this pest, especially around twilight and at night when the insects prefer to congregate in swarms on plant stems or trunks.

Check for egg masses on bricks, stones, trees-especially the tree of heaven-and other flat surfaces.

Related Article: Invasive Lanternfly Continues Spread in New York, Might Take Down Grape and Wine Industry