AI Enabled IoRT Framework for Rodent Activity Monitoring in a False Ceiling Environment

• Main Authors: Balakrishnan Ramalingam, Thein Tun, Rajesh Elara Mohan, Braulio Félix Gómez, Ruoxi Cheng, Selvasundari Balakrishnan, Madan Mohan Rayaguru, Abdullah Aamir Hayat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: rodent detection; faster RCNN; deep learning; object detection; IoRT; inspection robot
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/16/5326

Routine rodent inspection is essential to curbing rat-borne diseases and infrastructure damages within the built environment. Rodents find false ceilings to be a perfect spot to seek shelter and construct their habitats. However, a manual false ceiling inspection for rodents is laborious and risky. This work presents an AI-enabled IoRT framework for rodent activity monitoring inside a false ceiling using an in-house developed robot called “Falcon”. The IoRT serves as a bridge between the users and the robots, through which seamless information sharing takes place. The shared images by the robots are inspected through a Faster RCNN ResNet 101 object detection algorithm, which is used to automatically detect the signs of rodent inside a false ceiling. The efficiency of the rodent activity detection algorithm was tested in a real-world false ceiling environment, and detection accuracy was evaluated with the standard performance metrics. The experimental results indicate that the algorithm detects rodent signs and 3D-printed rodents with a good confidence level.