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Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

preprints.org

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Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#61

Post by spoonjim »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #29
k_sze wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of an alternative, not sure whether that would be practical, but it's possibly safer than laser: instead of shooting laser, make a turret that shoots (biodegradable, edible) soap water at the mosquitoes, in the smallest dose necessary to make the mosquito's wings stick. It would require some fluid-aerodynamics and projectile motion calculation, however.

not a bad idea… something manually controlled but otherwise similar already exists, the "bug-a-salt" gun. https://www.bugasalt.com

Where are you supposed to use this? Indoors it will corrode your plumbing and outdoors it will kill your plants.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#63

Post by clort »

momirlan wrote: post #27
k_sze wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of an alternative, not sure whether that would be practical, but it's possibly safer than laser: instead of shooting laser, make a turret that shoots (biodegradable, edible) soap water at the mosquitoes, in the smallest dose necessary to make the mosquito's wings stick. It would require some fluid-aerodynamics and projectile motion calculation, however.

Use a garden hose, cover the whole area

I think the problem with that would be, that there would be a huge damp patch on the ground where a million mosquitoes would lay their eggs..

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#64

Post by momirlan »

clort wrote: post #63
momirlan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a garden hose, cover the whole area

I think the problem with that would be, that there would be a huge damp patch on the ground where a million mosquitoes would lay their eggs..

Omg, people take these comments seriously ?

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#65

Post by BrandoElFollito »

tpmx wrote: post #33
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

This work (I think) worked with the mosquitos 30cm away with a servo scanning Pi Camera (1080p) and a 1W laser. To work in the real world - cover a whole room or terrace - presumably a much higher resolution camera (or much faster scanning system) would be required. Even a 1W laser is dangerous to eyesight, if it was being fired at targets mingling with people. The system could be mounted on small drones that would p…

I started thinking about something similar last summer to deal with aggressive flies from a nearby farm. Perhaps it's possible to make something that's kinda safe for eyesight if you make it track and light up the fly/mosquito for e.g. 50 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds.

Or shoot only horizontally at 1 cm from the ceiling. Sooner or later the mosquito/fly will be there as well

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#66

Post by BrandoElFollito »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

This work (I think) worked with the mosquitos 30cm away with a servo scanning Pi Camera (1080p) and a 1W laser. To work in the real world - cover a whole room or terrace - presumably a much higher resolution camera (or much faster scanning system) would be required. Even a 1W laser is dangerous to eyesight, if it was being fired at targets mingling with people. The system could be mounted on small drones that would p…

Or shoot only horizontally at 1 cm from the ceiling. Sooner or later the mosquito/fly will be there as wellOr shoot only horizontally at 1 cm from the ceiling. Sooner or later the mosquito/fly will be there as well

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#67

Post by janoc »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

This work (I think) worked with the mosquitos 30cm away with a servo scanning Pi Camera (1080p) and a 1W laser. To work in the real world - cover a whole room or terrace - presumably a much higher resolution camera (or much faster scanning system) would be required. Even a 1W laser is dangerous to eyesight, if it was being fired at targets mingling with people. The system could be mounted on small drones that would p…

Good luck detecting a mosquito optically from a distance of several meters using a cheap camera and Raspberry Pi. Oh and you want to do from a moving drone. That will certainly make it work!

Just look at the images in the article - the guy's best result was detecting a black speck appearing on a nearby white wall with some 60-70% reliability (based on his own numbers). So you would be missing a lot of mosquitoes - but will be happy firing the laser at random shadows and what not. And that was in a completely stationary setup and controlled lab conditions, i.e. not at all something resembling a typical poorly lit room!

This article is BS. Preprints are not peer reviewed (i.e. nobody has checked anything in it - so could even be a complete hoax), it is a pretty typical gadgetry style paper (we do it because we can, not because it makes sense) you do at when you need to fill up your resume with research papers (e.g. for keeping/obtaining a job reasons).

The "save the world" (mosquito control, diseases, etc.) justification is also par for the course for this type of crappy paper. Anyone who seriously thinks that one could control mosquito problem by shooting them one by one by a laser is delusional.

But neural networks and "AI" are being used, so it has to be cutting edge groundbreaking stuff, right?

BTW, this nonsense idea has been floated as a publicity stunt a few years ago (including a slow motion video of a laser burning off wing of a mosquito in flight) and it seems that some Russian PhD student from a fairly obscure uni either didn't do their research or has reinvented the wheel (or just plain copied the thing without attribution). The list of irrelevant or only very tangentially relevant (it is about mosquitoes, so in scope, right?) references is a dead giveaway there (paper on mosquitoes spreading zika? seriously?).

Here, it was even on National Geographic in 2010(!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKm8FolQ7jw

Oh and that was supposed to be a handheld device to boot. With the same "save the world from malaria" spiel too. I wonder what are the owners of the company that was pushing this concept to investors back then trying to sell today ...

There are actually multiple videos on Youtube showing products from different companies that were attempting to push this as some sort of viable concept.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#68

Post by x86ARMsRace »

jacquesm wrote: post #54

This is a nice little firestarter. I've had this idea many years ago and my solution to that problem was to use two or more lasers of lower power that all shoot at the same point in 3 dimensional space. If you guess wrong then at least you won't set your house on fire (or blind someone).

The FAA might take objection too. Some places won't let you have lasers within a certain range of an airport. Also, what happens if the mosquito turret mistakes a 747 for a mosquito? Sounds like an effective way to blind pilots. Cool idea though, might be fun indoors if your house is fireproofed.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#69

Post by oops »

spoonjim wrote: post #61
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not a bad idea… something manually controlled but otherwise similar already exists, the "bug-a-salt" gun. https://www.bugasalt.com

Where are you supposed to use this? Indoors it will corrode your plumbing and outdoors it will kill your plants.

Well that's where the Roomba carrying a tray of margaritas comes in.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#70

Post by adrianN »

tartoran wrote: post #60
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

This work (I think) worked with the mosquitos 30cm away with a servo scanning Pi Camera (1080p) and a 1W laser. To work in the real world - cover a whole room or terrace - presumably a much higher resolution camera (or much faster scanning system) would be required. Even a 1W laser is dangerous to eyesight, if it was being fired at targets mingling with people. The system could be mounted on small drones that would p…

I think lamps surrounded by charged coils do decent job of passively zapping mosquitoes since they zap themselves practically.

Mosquitos are not particularly attracted to light, they use CO2 and body odour to find their prey.
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