The slopes of South Moravia are bathed in warm sunshine, the vineyards are covered with sweet fruit and everyone is looking forward to tasting what they have managed to grow. Suddenly, a growing black cloud appears in the sky. Thousands of starlings descend among the vines and most of the crop is gone in just ten minutes. Huge damage could be prevented by an intelligent scare system, which is being developed by experts at BUT. And winemakers are interested from as far as France.

“Starlings are extremely intelligent birds, so they can get used to gas cannons and the shot does not frighten them anymore,” says Eliška Vlachová Hutová about the black birds and their intelligence. As a project leader, she has been researching starling scaring at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication BUT for two years already.

Sights of the flock

If you have ever driven through a vineyard during the ripening season, you have certainly heard the cannon-like thuds. And it really is a cannon – a gas cannon, which is supposed to scare, at regular intervals, any birds which might be tempted to eat the ripe grapes. However, such cannons scare other animals, annoy the locals who have to listen to them all day, and above all, the starlings can get used to them and they become meaningless.

“We decided to scare the flock of starlings only when they appear over the vineyard. When a flock appears on the camera, the artificial intelligence evaluates that the birds have arrived, the optical detector sends a signal to the “scarer” and it is triggered,” researcher Petr Marcoň explains the principle of the new system.

The scarer does not have to be just a gas cannon; recordings of predators also work. “We wanted to avoid gas cannons, because they are difficult to operate, they have to be hidden away at night and they make really big bangs. We have tried to choose acoustic scarers that emit different signals, for example ultrasonic signals that are inaudible to humans,” says researcher Jiří Janoušek. “We have also tried laser scarers, because the idea of using lasers is currently quite popular. We designed our own green laser, which falls into a class safe for the human eye, and we found that the starlings did not react at all,” adds Marcoň.

Starling versus airplane

And how can the camera detect that starlings have arrived? “We are scanning the space of the vineyard and the sky above it. The cameras work on pre-trained models, where we showed flocks of starlings to the AI,” Janoušek explains the principle of detection. The AI also ensures that the system does not evaluate large predators, distant aircraft or mosquitoes too close to the camera as potential threats.

The computer that evaluates the data is part of the cameras. The entire system is remotely accessible, can be powered by a solar panel with battery or plugged in. Despite the fact that an initial investment would be necessary, experts from BUT believe that the winemakers would make their money back quite quickly. For example, smaller winegrowers can purchase the system together and monitor entire slopes at once.

Our electrical engineers tested the detectors last year at the vineyard in Bořetice and at the Sonberk winery. “They use more than one method, they have scare cannons, but also workers who go around the vineyard and shoot in the air, so their costs are significant. Visitors are disturbed by the cannon blasts,” Jiří Janoušek shares his experience from the field.

Because starling raids happen only a few times a day, it is not necessary to have the cannons running all day. If the system is triggered at the right moment, it can scare the birds away so that they will not appear again at least for that day.

Do you want proof that starlings are not to be underestimated? “Some winemakers cover their vineyards with netting to keep the birds out. But the starlings are capable of landing and then getting under the net. Some flocks are said to land tens of metres in front of the vineyard, escape the viewfinder and simply hop to the spot. That way they would bypass ever our system,” says Eliška Vlachová Hutová.

A commercial company has already expressed interest in the system and would like to manufacture and sell it. Our scientists have also been approached by interested parties from France who would like to deploy the cameras in Burgundy.