Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

naro.go.jp

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 124 posts

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#71

Post by GuB-42 »

taneq wrote: post #56
jcims wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be able to create a vortex cannon with enough shear force to rip their wings off.

After abandoning the laser idea due to the aforementioned “fully automated blindness / house fire machine” issues, I’ve often idly wondered if you could use a phased array of small subwoofers to generate a precisely targeted region of extreme pressure drop. That way you could just instantaneously and explosively decompress the suckers in such a way that’s probably safe for mammals.

The wavelength of subwoofers is way too long (meters) for something the size of a mosquito. Mosquitoes are ultrasound-sized. A mosquito destroying phased array of ultrasound transducers may be physically possible but probably even less practical than lasers.

If you actually want to create a shock wave, you need something that goes faster than the speed of sound, like high explosives... A lovely idea, but a bit overkill.

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#72

Post by deepnotderp »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #42
consp wrote: post #17

Ah yes, the "star wars laser defense mosquito system". It' as impractical then (early 00's origin) as it is now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGkPMZxWPpA&t=2s (it's Dutch but you get it). Unless you can get mm accuracy and perfect non-foe detection it's useless with the multi-watt lasers generally required.

I've been dreaming about that to kill mosquitoes since I was a teenager. Then I wondered: "how to prevent firing the laser into someone's eye?" and my idea was to only shoot laser from 2 meters high and to only ever shoot towards the ceiling, never downwards, while having the ceiling having some kind of paint/material that wouldn't be reflecting the laser too much. Make the paint/material all white to makes mosquito…

You could fire a pulse with lower power to check what the return distance is to see if there’s anything in the way. This is what some wireless power transfer approaches do essentially iirc

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#73

Post by jcims »

taneq wrote: post #56
jcims wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be able to create a vortex cannon with enough shear force to rip their wings off.

After abandoning the laser idea due to the aforementioned “fully automated blindness / house fire machine” issues, I’ve often idly wondered if you could use a phased array of small subwoofers to generate a precisely targeted region of extreme pressure drop. That way you could just instantaneously and explosively decompress the suckers in such a way that’s probably safe for mammals.

There are a number of DIY instructions for building a phased array ultrasonic manipulator, eg [1]. You might be able to 'tweeze' the offender into a capture apparatus or high voltage deanimator.

https://hackaday.com/2021/08/18/phased-array-levitation-is-s...

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#74

Post by mLuby »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #42
consp wrote: post #17

Ah yes, the "star wars laser defense mosquito system". It' as impractical then (early 00's origin) as it is now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGkPMZxWPpA&t=2s (it's Dutch but you get it). Unless you can get mm accuracy and perfect non-foe detection it's useless with the multi-watt lasers generally required.

I've been dreaming about that to kill mosquitoes since I was a teenager. Then I wondered: "how to prevent firing the laser into someone's eye?" and my idea was to only shoot laser from 2 meters high and to only ever shoot towards the ceiling, never downwards, while having the ceiling having some kind of paint/material that wouldn't be reflecting the laser too much. Make the paint/material all white to makes mosquito…

Wipe them out, all of them. The ecosystem will survive mosquitoes' extinction.

On the subject of laser safety, can you make one weak enough that a human will naturally blink or look away without getting blinded but powerful enough that it'll overheat the mosquito its trained on for a few seconds? If the Joules are spread out linearly over a few second, I expect it'd exponentially decrease the risk of chance reflections blinding unprotected eyeballs.

As for the mm accuracy and IFF detection, a low power laser-as-microphone has been shown capable of differentiating the distinctive whine of female mosquitoes (the only bloodsuckers) from everything else. See a previous discussion will a link to my notes on demo here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29016210.

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#75

Post by jcims »

GuB-42 wrote: post #71
taneq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After abandoning the laser idea due to the aforementioned “fully automated blindness / house fire machine” issues, I’ve often idly wondered if you could use a phased array of small subwoofers to generate a precisely targeted region of extreme pressure drop. That way you could just instantaneously and explosively decompress the suckers in such a way that’s probably safe for mammals.

The wavelength of subwoofers is way too long (meters) for something the size of a mosquito. Mosquitoes are ultrasound-sized. A mosquito destroying phased array of ultrasound transducers may be physically possible but probably even less practical than lasers. If you actually want to create a shock wave, you need something that goes faster than the speed of sound, like high explosives... A lovely idea, but a bit overki…

A small stoichiometric mixture of oxygen and hydrogen (created from electrolysis) might be able to create a shockwave or vortex with supersonic components for a range of 1-3m.

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#77

Post by feupan »

true_religion wrote: post #66
feupan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the chances of a quarter’s reflection aligning to your eye while the laser is on and pointing at it are pretty damn slim. If that’s still too high, you better eliminate all corners in your kitchen because someone is going to lose an eye. And don’t get me started on forks.

The laser is designed to shoot small things in the air. If you flip a coin, and the system has a bug that determines the coin is a bug then it'll shoot. Since you're surely planning on caching the coin, you'll look directly at it in flight. Now... you're blind.

That’s not how reflections work. Also there’s no bug as big as a coin that such a system could/should kill, so it’s pretty easy to not misdetect that.

Again, corners have a higher probability of ending up in your eye than even just someone flipping a coin in 2022.

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#78

Post by latchkey »

jcims wrote: post #46
TacticalCoder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been dreaming about that to kill mosquitoes since I was a teenager. Then I wondered: "how to prevent firing the laser into someone's eye?" and my idea was to only shoot laser from 2 meters high and to only ever shoot towards the ceiling, never downwards, while having the ceiling having some kind of paint/material that wouldn't be reflecting the laser too much. Make the paint/material all white to makes mosquito…

You might be able to create a vortex cannon with enough shear force to rip their wings off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BhV-o77RqQ

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#79

Post by blincoln »

picture wrote: post #36
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistic implementations use a cabinet with a generous intake and force air (and flying insects through into a controlled, confined space. After going around a corner or two, laser exposure issues are limited, and you can be close enough to aim effectively with limited optics.

Why not just use a mesh screen with a fan? Bugs generally don't fly with a lot of thrust to weight so they get trapped against the screen and die. I think NightHawkInLight has some videos about this on yt, though its definitely not some new idea.

Or an electrified grid, like the electric flyswatters that are easy to find now.

If one wants to shoot them down instead of some reason, why not a laminar flow water nozzle instead of a laser? Seems like that would be way safer.

Re: Predict 3D position of flying bugs and pest to shoot down them with a laser

#80

Post by bmitc »

feupan wrote: post #60
dumbfoundded wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use lasers in lots of consumer products, we don't really have any with exposed lasers. You just can't guarantee that someone doesn't flip a quarter and blind themselves. It's a cool idea but pretty impossible to be safe.

I think the chances of a quarter’s reflection aligning to your eye while the laser is on and pointing at it are pretty damn slim. If that’s still too high, you better eliminate all corners in your kitchen because someone is going to lose an eye. And don’t get me started on forks.

Lasers are assigned a classification and regulated. You can't just get a lower classification just because. You can severely damage your eye (and more) with a laser, which may not even be visible. If corners and forks were invisible, traveled at the speed of light, propagated over large distances, were regulated, and could affect aircraft, then maybe your analogies would work.
Post reply on HN