Drone as olfactory biosensor : Characterization of operating parameters influence on VOCs collection, and bark beetle outbreak detection in Norway spruce plantation

Abstract

The application field of drone has diversified greatly over the past decade. This can be explainedby its democratization and versatility. Indeed, it is involved in many fields as it can be associatedwith numerous technologies (captors, cameras. . . ). The chemical ecology is no exception. Thisscientific discipline is interested in the development of biological control techniques. Among thesetechniques, the observation of odor profiles changes in infested crops is promising as earlyinfestation diagnosis. Indeed, a crop infested by a pest emits particular odors. Sometimes, thepest itself emits odors which permits its identification (in the form of sexual or aggregationpheromone). This master thesis aims to use drones for crop pest detection. The bark beetle waschosen as the study model, as its strong proliferation and the lack of control techniques availablenowadays. For this purpose, a sampling method of VOCs using drone was developed inlaboratory and tested in the field. After the selection of some VOCs (alpha-Pinene,cis-3-Hexen-1-ol, beta-Caryophyllene), the operating parameters effect like the height, the airsampled volume and the flow rate on the amount of sampled VOCs was investigated. Somescale-ups were carried out, starting from without drone indoor samplings to outdoor with dronesamplings, in order to confirm the impact of pre-mentioned operating parameters. Followingthese experimentations, surface responses (contour and persp) were calculated in order to set theoperating parameters allowing an efficient VOCs sampling on the field. The air sampled volumewas the most influent parameter on the collected VOCs amount. The height had also an effect,but much less significant than the first. A validation application above anIps Typographusbarkbeetle infested spruces plantation allowed the VOCs detection released by the crop, as well astwo bark beetles aggregation pheromones. This technique is therefore promising in the diagnosisof bark beetle, thus limiting losses by producers.