Insect sortation system including sortation devices for directing mosquitos to an outlet after passing a detector

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2024281466-A1
Application number	US-202418651983-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 1, 2024
Priority date	May 3, 2019
Publication date	Aug 22, 2024
Grant date	—

Abstract

An insect sortation system is disclosed. The insect sortation system includes a pathway having a first end and a second end; a first outlet extending from the pathway adjacent to the second end; a second outlet extending from the pathway adjacent to the second end; a detector disposed adjacent to the pathway and configured to detect one or more characteristics of mosquitos passing by the detector; a shutter disposed within the pathway between the detector and the second end of the pathway; and one or more sortation devices configured to direct each mosquito of the mosquitos to at least one of the first outlet or the second outlet after passing by the detector.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An insect sortation system, comprising:
a pathway having a first end and a second end; a first outlet extending from the pathway adjacent to the second end; a second outlet extending from the pathway adjacent to the second end; a detector disposed adjacent to the pathway and configured to detect one or more characteristics of mosquitos passing by the detector; a shutter disposed within the pathway between the detector and the second end of the pathway; and one or more sortation devices configured to direct each mosquito of the mosquitos to at least one of the first outlet or the second outlet after passing by the detector.

2 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , wherein the pathway, the first outlet, and the second outlet are configured to form a three-way pathway.

3 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , wherein the first outlet and the second outlet are arranged substantially perpendicular to the pathway.

4 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , further comprising an air flow system configured to blow air into the pathway at the mosquitos.

5 . The insect sortation system of claim 4 , where in the air flow system comprises an air source positioned along the pathway for directing air into the pathway to encourage movement of the mosquitos towards the first end or the second end of the pathway.

6 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more sortation devices each comprise an air nozzle.

7 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , wherein the shutter is operable between an open position and a closed position for controlling flow of the mosquitos towards the second end of the pathway.

8 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a first sort container attached to a first distal end of the first outlet; and a second sort container attached to a second distal end of the second outlet.

9 . The insect sortation system of claim 1 , wherein directing each mosquito of the mosquitos to at least one of the first outlet or the second outlet after passing by the detector is based on the one or more characteristics of mosquitos.

10 . A method for sorting insects, comprising:
blowing a first insect from a proximal end of a pathway towards a distal end of the pathway using an air flow system disposed along the pathway, the pathway including a detector disposed adjacent to the pathway; responsive to the detector detecting the first insect passing a shutter disposed within the pathway between the proximal end and the distal end of the pathway, closing the shutter; determining a classification for the first insect; responsive to the determination of the classification for the first insect, opening the shutter; blowing the first insect towards the distal end of the pathway using the air flow system, wherein a first outlet extends away from the distal end of the pathway and a second outlet extends away from the distal end of the pathway; and directing movement, using one or more sortation devices, of the first insect to at least one of the first outlet or the second outlet based on the classification for the first insect.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the detector is configured to detect one or more characteristics of insects passing by the detector.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the pathway, the first outlet, and the second outlet are configured to form a three-way pathway.

13 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the first outlet and the second outlet are arranged substantially perpendicular to the pathway.

14 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the air flow system comprises an air source, an air inlet to the pathway, and a control valve.

15 . The method of claim 10 , wherein each of the one or more sortation devices comprises an air nozzle.

16 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the shutter is operable between an open position and a closed position for controlling flow of the first insect towards the distal end of the pathway.

17 . An insect sortation system, comprising:
a T-shaped, three-way pathway including:
a pathway, comprising a first end and a second end;
a first outlet end extending perpendicularly away from the second end of the pathway towards a first sort container; and
a second outlet end extending perpendicularly away from the second end of the pathway towards a second sort container;
an imaging device disposed adjacent to the pathway and configured to capture images of mosquitos; a shutter disposed within the pathway and positioned before the imaging device; and one or more sortation devices configured to direct the mosquitos to the first outlet end or the second outlet end based on a sex classification of each mosquito.

18 . The insect sortation system of claim 17 , further comprising an air flow system configured to blow air into the pathway at the mosquitos, comprising an air source positioned along the pathway before or after the shutter, an air inlet to the pathway, and a control valve.

19 . The insect sortation system of claim 17 , wherein each of the one or more sortation devices comprises an air nozzle.

20 . The insect sortation system of claim 17 , wherein the shutter is operable between an open position and a closed position for controlling flow of the mosquitos towards the second end of the pathway.

Assignees

• Verily Life Sciences Llc

Inventors

• Desnoyer Mark
• Criswell Victor
• Livni Josh
• Ovadia Yaniv
• Massaro Peter
• Snoad Nigel
• Krishnan Dilip
• Han Yi
• Zha Tiantian

Classifications

• G06N3/09

  Supervised learning · CPC title

• G06N3/0464

  Convolutional networks [CNN, ConvNet] · CPC title

• G06N3/0442

  characterised by memory or gating, e.g. long short-term memory [LSTM] or gated recurrent units [GRU] · CPC title

• G06N3/045

  Combinations of networks · CPC title

• G06F18/24

  Classification techniques · CPC title