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Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

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Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#151

Post by onion2k »

Covzire wrote: post #101
worik wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you say is so true... That would make you a spoil sport, burst my bubble... I am going to have a little cry in the corner now. I really wanted a AI powered, laser equipped, mosquito hunting drone for my house. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Shrug, add a nice zoom lens to make it's effective range several meters instead. Of course it would be far sighted but maybe you know most mosquitos will be several meters away anyway. Or have 3 cameras, one for the cm, one for the m and one able to zoom many meters to look at known problem spots like puddles or a bird bath.

An alternative solution would be to genetically engineer bigger mosquitoes.

This is why I should not be in charge of anything.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#152

Post by pmontra »

klipt wrote: post #144
Jedd wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An ordinary UV lamp with bug zapper will probably be more effective. Alas, as I discovered recently when looking at those nifty, cheap, USB-powered UV + fan mosquito killers -- mosquitoes aren't attracted to UV. Evidently they are attracted to CO2 and warmth, which are a bit harder to generate at 5V, sadly.

There are some blog posts about building mosquito traps that generate CO2, I think they use yeast to do it and can be pretty effective!

I saw those videos. The problem is the maintenance, adding yeast and cleaning the trap. Imagine scaling to multiple traps in a house or the garden.

On the other side, burning methane generates CO2: CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O. Methane is distributed nearly everywhere in my country for cooking and heating. That at least solves the problem of refilling.

I guess we should burn a very small amount of methane to lure mosquitoes into those traps. But how about climate change etc.?

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#153

Post by undecisive »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #35

Exactly my idea for a pet project for a long time. The only difference was my intention to use (ultra-)sound tracking as well.

Haha, I've had this idea rattling about my brain for some time too (though mine went a bit further in scope instead - all sorts of crop pest control for small-scale farming situations, such as greenfly, caterpillars, etc, with training to avoid positive visitors such a bees)

Early on, I dismissed ultrasound - unless some kind of funky triangulation went on, I think the resolution would be far too low and risk of false positives too high - but I'd be interested to hear any thoughts you had on how that might work. That said, recognising the flight noises of certain bugs would make sense to me - only as a way to trigger a stop-and-sweep cycle though.

But as much as the idea excites me, "real" exploration of the space will only happen when I get lots of time and a fair bit of money - and maybe some land! Alas, I'm nowhere near that point yet.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#154

Post by jacquesm »

beervirus wrote: post #150
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).

Even 1/4 watt is not something you want shined in your eye.

True, but 1 W to damage a mosquito is likely overkill.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#155

Post by thombat »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #95
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…

> the idea of robotic drones armed with lasers roaming around is beginning to sound worse than the mosquitos. I don't really mind mosquitos outdoors, what I really hate is when I'm trying to sleep and there is a mosquito in the room. This means I have to turn the light bright on and spend time hunting them down or fill the room wit a toxic insecticide gas. I would rather leave the room (or stay there with my eyes cov…

Now imagine trying to sleep in a room that has a multi-rotor drone hunting mosquitos...

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#156

Post by justaj »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
Moeg wrote: post #18

Why not use sonar like the other such project which if memory serves is backed by Bill Gates.

The system designed and built by Intellectual Ventures uses lasers for ranging and discrimination. https://photonicsentry.com/ https://www.wired.com/2010/02/death-star-laser-zaps-mosqitoe...

IIRC Intellectual Ventures was / is also a notorious patent troll. AFAIK this was the main barrier that companies that wanted to head into similar spaces had to face. So I'm glad something open source is being developed.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#157

Post by thombat »

cma wrote: post #75
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…

Is there a wavelength that could blind mosquitos and not humans? Mosquitos aren't party to any blinding laser weapons convention, and while it wouldn't kill them they might not survive too long after being blinded.

They don't use their eyes to hunt, just to detect potential attackers.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#158

Post by swayvil »

walrus01 wrote: post #145
janoc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - bu…

> using a cheap camera even if you had a RED Komodo feeding uncompressed 4K DCI 60fps video to a pci-express bus capture card, the sensor resolution and tiny size of mosquitoes means that unless the lighting conditions are just right, and the mosquito is somehow highlighted against a background, it's going to be very hard to pick them out at distances of 2 or more meters. and that's before you get into the software p…

Would targeting the distinctive mosquito whine be feasible?

You could have several bluetooth mikes scattered around the room for good triangulation

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#159

Post by eecc »

trulyme wrote: post #143
hutzlibu wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the mosquito I would say. I used to train martial art skills by catching mosquitos midflight. Most are indeed very lethargic, but there are some much more agile variants out there.

I assume you used sticks, karate kid style? :)

Or was it The Revenge of the Nerds?
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