Chilean researchers of Engineering and Natural Resources of the University of Bío-Bío developed artificial intelligence (AI) to detect invasive species in national parks protected by the state.
According to a report published on the website of Bio Bio Chilescientists belong to Science 2030 Consortium and its AI can identify and classify these exotic species in the camera traps located in the wild areas that protects Chile.
The innovation will automate the current sorting process and save 99 percent of park officials’ time.
How did they develop artificial intelligence?
Researchers José Diaz, Bastián Diaz, Daniela Riveros and Karina Matamala worked with data from the Cerro Castillo National Park, located in the Aysén region and distributed between the districts of Coyhaique and Río Ibáñez, to process the information and train artificial intelligence .
José Díaz, a graduate of Natural Resources Engineering, explained in this regard: “The way we deliver AI to the user is through a very simple application and the AI simply processes the photograph”.
“We have already trained the AI with the Chilean National Parks database, so it is very well designed to solve the problem of invasive species”, he added.
For his part, Bastián Díaz, a 4th year Natural Resources student, commented: “In addition, we are working on the application with open source. Because we want to open the knowledge or what we create, and grow on a larger scale”.
“We have direct contact with those in charge of the CONAF camera traps, with them we are exchanging progress and giving them a demo. That is, a reduced version of the application so that they can use and evaluate it”, he highlighted.
Now, the researchers are developing a second demo of the program to deliver it to CONAF rangers.