SIT-ia: A Software-Hardware System to Improve Male Sorting Efficacy for the Sterile Insect Technique

/in

SIT-ia: A Software-Hardware System to Improve Male Sorting Efficacy for the Sterile Insect Technique

Tags: , ,
de la Vega, G., Smith, L., Soria-Mercier, L., et al.,  Insects,  16. 2025.

This research addresses a challenge in using the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), an eco-friendly pest control method. For SIT to work, only sterile male insects can be released, but sorting males from females by hand is slow and laborious. The study introduces a new automated system called SIT-ia that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly and accurately tell male and female flies apart. When tested on the spotted-wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii), the system was 98.6% accurate. A key benefit is its speed: SIT-ia can sort 1000 flies in about 70 min, which is 40 min faster than human experts. This innovation makes sex-sorting a more efficient and practical process, needed for managing pest insects in a sustainable way.

Invasive insects can cause significant economic impacts to agriculture worldwide and impact human health. Traditional pest management methods that include chemical insecticides have raised increasing environmental and health concerns, prompting the need for sustainable alternatives. The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), which consists of releasing sterile males of a target pest to mate with wild females, is held as a promising solution. However, the success of SIT relies on the release of sterile males. The efficient separation of sexes prior to sterilization and release is necessary. This study presents SIT-ia, a software–hardware system that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to automate the sex-sorting process. We showcase its use with the fruit fly pest D. suzukii. The system was able to identify males from females with a 98.6% accuracy, sorting 1000 sterile flies in ~70 min, which is nearly half the time involved in manual sorting by experts (i.e., ~112 min). This simple device can easily be adopted in SIT production protocols, improving the feasibility and efficacy of improved pest management practices.