Development of a Gender Identification Device for  Eri Silkworm Pupae: doi: 10.14456/mijet.2020.14

Jakrachai Chinnakotr; Kiattisin Kanjanawanishkul; Noppachai Khongcharern; Prarin Chupawa

Authors

Jakrachai Chinnakotr Nakhonphanom University
Kiattisin Kanjanawanishkul Mahasarakham University
Noppachai Khongcharern Mahasarakham University
Prarin Chupawa

Keywords:

Gender Identification, Eri Silkworm Pupae, Digital Image Processing, Male Pupae, Female Pupae

Abstract

To know the gender of an Eri silkworm pupa is important because the cocoon from male silkworms can be used to produce the silk with better quality than the cocoon from the female silkworms. The male and female silkworm pupae themselves also contain different medicinal properties. Moreover, to increase efficiency in silkworm breeding, the number of male and female pupae should be equal. Therefore, the aim of the research is to develop a gender identification device for Eri silkworm pupae using digital image processing. The single board computer was adopted as a main controller of the developed device and the Qt program with the OpenCV library was used for programming. First, the pupa was held using the holding mechanism and then a red LED was lit up near the sex mark of the pupa. After that the proposed image processing algorithm was conducted to distinguish between male and female pupae. The experimental results showed that the accuracies of the gender identification for male pupae and female pupae were 92% and 98%, respectively. The overall accuracy was 95%. The average operating time for one pupa was 9.3 s. Then, it was used to identify the gender of pupae for silkworm breeding. The results showed that the number of eggs was increased by 52.2% compared with the cocoon-uncut gender identification method by silkworm farmers. As a result, the gender identification device can be used to identify the gender of the Eri silkworm pupae effectively and increase the efficiency of the silkworm breeding significantly.

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