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Laser for control of mosquitos, weeds and pests
- EastOfTruth 5y agoappears to be very far from reality... and there is so many mosquitos around here that I would not want lasers handling them (there are better ways, nowadays)
- RosanaAnaDana 5y agoSo how does it do the killing aspect? I guess I would have previously assumed that you need to heat up/ burn the mosquito to kill them. What wavelength of laser is suitable for killing mosquitos?
- ildaron_ron 5y agoWe chose the laser based on the power since the task is to heat up. Used 1 W, but for burn wing don't need so power.
- prutschman 5y agoThere's some available literature on the subject of required laser wavelength/energy for an in-flight thermal mosquito kill: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71824-y.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71824-y.pdf For a thermal kill you have to deliver some number of Joules of energy into the target. You can use a lower powered laser over a longer period of time, up to a point. You have roughly 25 milliseconds of thermal confinement time before the mosquito starts to cool off. Longer exposures can work, but the total energy dose needed goes up. Longer exposures also require keeping the laser aimed at the target for a longer time. Power needed also depends on how closely you can track the target. If you make the spot small enough that the target catches all of it then you minimize power requirements, but that increases the complexity of the optics. If you use a spot size larger than the target then the optical and tracking complexity go down, but you're no longer sending all of your Joules into the target.
- oofabz 5y agoI'd like something like this but for houseflies instead of mosquitoes. Although, I suppose a simpler solution would be to install a cat door rather than propping the back door open.
- basicplus2 5y agoI want one that controls a table tennis bat to intercept rocks headed for my windscreen
- ildaron_ron 5y agoDear colleagues, I periodically receive questions about the status of my project to neutralize mosquitoes with a laser. I wanted to say that I post all the new information on the open source github - https://github.com/Ildaron/Laser_control https://github.com/Ildaron/Laser_control I continue this direction but I do it very slowly. But at the same time, I received very important comments from you.
- Jedd 5y agoI've been meaning to write up an 'Ask HN' style question around using something similar to combat a common beekeeping pest called the Small Hive Beetle (SHB). This is a small (5mm) black beetle that comes into beehives, usually around dusk, and causes massive havoc, can easily wipe out colonies quite quickly. It arrived in Australia about 15 years ago, but is common almost everywhere else in the world now. There's lots of control mechanisms, but they're all incomplete (traps, nematodes in soil around the hive, mesh layers they can be pushed / fall through but bees can't fit through, etc). A laser unit sitting in front of a hive, perhaps with an extended landing pad, seems like an excellent use case for an approach like yours. So, if you're bored, and want to save the (beekpeeing) world ... ? : )
- ildaron_ron 5y agoyes, exactly. I considered it. It is very easy to do.
- Jedd 5y agoI approve your optimism, while doubting it would be at all easy for me to try to do. You would have no shortage of beta testers, and in the hobby / home space I would expect the market to be significant. Commercial hive operators, I'm less sure about how the economics would play out there. There's at least one other pest that's large enough to be a good candidate for this approach - the wax moth. There's plenty of other pests, but they're typically small and hitch a ride on bees, (eg varroa mite) so terminator gene really is our most hopeful solution for many of those.
- LinuxBender 5y agoThis is interesting and looks like it was a fun project, but it looks a little complicated to be practical for me personally. I currently just put a screen over a large fan and open a bottle of carbonated water to attract them near the screen. The fan/screen can kill (starve) tens of thousands of them per day and their carcasses can be used in plant fertilizer. The downside of my method I suppose is that the fan will use more power than your laser by quite a bit. [Edit] Apologies to the parent poster. I did not mean to derail the laser discussion.
- singularity2001 5y agoAlso hijacking the general mosquito control discussion: What's wrong with UV light traps? Got one from amazon and the soothing placebo? effect is great.
- llampx 5y agoUV doesn't attract mosquitoes
- singularity2001 5y agoOh, are German mosquitoes different or is it really just placebo? Thinking about it: If I leave the window open with the light on in summer there will be hundreds of mosquitoes in the room (together with ~50% other critters). Even if no one was inside. Window open without light: a dozen mosquitoes at max (as counted by suddenly switching the light on). Whatever is known about other species is not correct about our breed.
- hcknwscommenter 5y agoThat's not UV light
- singularity2001 5y agofair comment. the "UV" trap lights are not pure UV either though.
- iaw 5y agoJust fyi this is not a new idea (not to detract from the creator) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
- sk2020 5y agoThere is also a really slick website for capturing sweet VC bucks: https://photonicsentry.com/ https://photonicsentry.com/ Real. Soon. Now.
- ildaron_ron 5y agoof course, not new. But it is the first time when an idea was realized in low-cost segment. And is open-source)
- aaron695 5y ago> Just fyi this is not a new idea (not to detract from the creator) Sorry but this is HN mythological bullshit. It's a well known criticism that Nathan Myhrvold uses his yet to exist 'mosquito laser' to justify his patent trolling. (No comment if it's true) Meh, it's a known idea because while stoned people talked about it in the 90's. If you have a link to working models though, feel free to post. Idea's are worth nothing. Worse Myhrvold's TED talk was misleading. Where’s Our Laser-Shooting Mosquito Death Machine? https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosquito-death-machine-nathan-myhrvold.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosqu...
- chasil 5y agoIn the long term, I think that many mosquito species will be driven to extinction within the next 30 years. As gene drive modifications become more accessible, preventing this becomes impossible. The ones that carry malaria will almost certainly be wiped out. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/07/28/1020932493/how-an-altered-strand-of-dna-can-cause-malaria-spreading-mosquitoes-to-self-dest https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/07/28/1020932...
- timmg 5y ago> In the long term, I think that many mosquito species will be driven to extinction within the next 30 years. I honestly don't know: will this affect the ecosystems? I think (at least) dragonflies eat mosquitoes. No idea how much the depend on them for food.
- nearbuy 5y agoThere was a study somewhere claiming that it wouldn't. Only a small fraction of mosquito species bite humans, and according to the study, none were particularly important to their ecosystems.
- weq 5y agobats eat mosquitoes, frogs, fish eat larvae..
- coldelectrons 5y agoSince humans only care about cute animals, you should probably add hummingbirds to your list.
- stefan_ 5y agoThis is always such an astonishing question to me. What happened to "the ecosystems" when we went from millions of humans to billions in the ecological timescale of the blink of an eye? One mention of "gene" and you attract all the conspiracy theory evolution deniers that suspect the upcoming zombie apocalypse behind the most mundane technology, all the while combusted dinosaurs takes them to their job. Don't worry, "the ecosystems" are perfectly fine with things appearing and disappearing constantly for the most random reasons.
- camkego 5y agoI'm sad to say there is a good chance Intellectual Ventures patented similar tech: https://www.mic.com/articles/180851/the-world-needs-this-smart-laser-that-kills-every-mosquito-in-sight https://www.mic.com/articles/180851/the-world-needs-this-sma...
- toomuchtodo 5y agohttps://patents.google.com/patent/US8705017B2/ https://patents.google.com/patent/US8705017B2/ (Photonic fence)
- echelon 5y agoWe need regulation to stop patents that aren't actually being used by the filer in a patent. Or if the filer hasn't tried to take it to market.
- ant6n 5y agoCouldnt u just use somebody elses patent. Then they can sue. Then they win. Then damages will be calcilated for the patent holder, which should be negligible.
- ildaron_ron 5y agoI read their paper. But not sure that this is a similar method.
- hedgehog 5y agoRoughly similar, at least in one iteration. They used a high speed camera and a retroreflective backstop to image everything between the two posts, then wing beat frequency to identify valid targets. After that injure with a laser same as yours. They used to have it running with a visible laser and box of captive mosquitoes in the lobby.
- ildaron_ron 5y agomaybe, I am not a big specialist in patent field
- newsclues 5y agoI want an umbrella that uses lasers to vaporize the raindrops that would fall on me.
- modeless 5y agoI think the portable fusion reactor you'd need to power it would be a cooler invention.
- newsclues 5y agoThose a readily available in the cyberpunk future.
- zackangelo 5y agoTesla obtained a patent for something similar for use on their windshields: https://electrek.co/2021/09/08/tesla-patent-laser-windshield-wipers/ https://electrek.co/2021/09/08/tesla-patent-laser-windshield...
- newsclues 5y agohttps://anonweblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/untitled-cyberpunk-work-rough-draft.html?m=1 https://anonweblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/untitled-cyberpunk-w... “ Carrying an Ultra Laser Umbrella, he walked out of the garage the car humming as it polished, into the dark rain outside in the alley. A cloud of mist covered the man, as his umbrella tracked every raindrop that would make contact with the man and instantly evaporated them before they could get the man wet.” Published 14 years ago
- the__alchemist 5y agoThoughts on danger to eyes? Ie lasers capable of killing a mosquito may not be eye safe. (?)
- ildaron_ron 5y agoabsolutely not safe for eyes in my GitHub the next information "The main limiting factor in the development of this technology is the danger of the laser may damage the eyes. The laser can enter a blood vessel and clog it, it can get into a blind spot where nerves from all over the eye go to the brain, you can burn out a line of "pixels" And then the damaged retina can begin to flake off, and this is the path to complete and irreversible loss of vision. This is dangerous because a person may not notice at the beginning of damage from a laser hit: there are no pain receptors there, the brain completes objects in damaged areas (remapping of dead pixels), and only when the damaged area becomes large enough person starts to notice that some objects not visible. We can develop additional security systems, such as human detection, audio sensors, etc. But in any case, we are not able to make the installation 100% safe, since even a laser can be reflected and damage the eye of a person who is not in the field of view of the device and at a distant distance. Therefore, this technology should not be used at home. My strong recommendation - don't use the power laser! I recommend making a device that will track an object using a safe laser pointer."
- _tom_ 5y agoCould you use a laser at a frequency that the cornea is opaque to?
- wnkrshm 5y agoThen you injure the cornea. That's why they use UV lasers for laser surgery, because the cornea absorbs it. Edit: I recently had a small corneal erosion from my eye drying out over night (eyelid was pulled open by sleeping in a weird posture) and I had 30% vision for 2 days on that eye. The cornea contributes about 40% (iirc could be more) to the total refractive power in the eye. If you have a UV-spot that melts moskitos dancing around on that for half a second...
- WalterBright 5y agoI'd rather have mosquitoes than be blinded. The box fan idea is much more attractive.
- WithinReason 5y agoI don't want to see any more mosquitoes, one way or another!
- lemper 5y agoI spent weeks on hospital because of two kids got dengue. so,I don't think this is an overkill solution.
- chris_va 5y agoRather than use a depth map, it might be more robust (though probably a bit more expensive) to just use a beam splitter (dielectric, at the laser wavelength) and have the camera share the bore-sight with the laser.
- batch12 5y agoI would like to build something this but using a salt gun instead of a laser.
- ildaron_ron 5y agoyes, it will be a little easy, because don't need high accuracy, only be dirty
- lefstathiou 5y agoThis is awesome. I am not an engineer and am wondering if this tech can be applied to killing field mice. I once read this is a multi billion dollar problem in Australia. Much better to do this than dump poisonous bait everywhere.
- jmnicolas 5y agoI don't think in this application a laser would be practical. To kill a mouse you're going to need a really big laser, that would give you 3rd degree burns if you were exposed. I'm not sure you can buy those things if you're not the military and power consumption might be horrendous too. Shawn Woods on YouTube has a passion for mouse traps. The most effective one is a bucket with a plank, he can catch about 20 mice a night with just one bucket.
- 01100011 5y agoWhy not laser control of people? You could setup a dazzler which blinds, say, someone pulling out a gun in a public place. You could couple it with an alarm system to have a limited 'area denial' system?
- sk2020 5y agoIn many jurisdictions in the US, interfering with criminals in any way is itself a crime, even if it’s with cool LTL tech. If you’re fortune enough not to live in one of those places, firearms are a solution that have worked for the last few centuries.
- 542354234235 5y ago>In many jurisdictions in the US, interfering with criminals in any way is itself a crime What do you mean by this? In what jurisdictions is it a crime to “interfere” with someone that pulls a gun?
- ildaron_ron 5y agosound dangerous
- 9dev 5y agoHey, great idea! We could also expand this to, say, blind anyone trying to say something bad about the president - NLU gets better every day!
- hnbad 5y agoI'm sure by "dazzler" you mean something causing temporary blindness rather than intentionally afflicting a permanent life-altering injury, but sadly that's not how lasers work.
- 01100011 5y agoAre you saying there is no safe exposure limit to a laser? That doesn't sound right. There are already dazzlers available for non lethal defense. You could use a poorly collimated laser to temporarily degrade vision just like any bright light causes temporary pupil constriction. I'm not suggesting causing actual eye damage.
- 01100011 5y agoI think I'd be happy with a 5mW version which merely highlights the insects so I can kill or trap them myself. How many times have you gone to swat a fly only to have it go out of view?
- phgn 5y agoOr lying awake from a mosquito you can just hear, but not see. I thought about the laser approach so many times already, incredible that some people actually implemented it.
- ildaron_ron 5y agointeresting application
- Mandatum 5y agoIron Dome meets Starwars meets Bug-a-Salt.. It'll be interesting to see how open source extends in this field.
- ildaron_ron 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxjTgiEXh7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxjTgiEXh7g I try to catch a cockroach with laser pointer Sorry, not good quality of the video
- thriftwy 5y agoI have tried killing mosquitoes with laser. It just does not work. Multiple seconds of those powerful green laser ray does no lasting damage to the critter.
- agent327 5y agoAh, someone finally implemented this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk How does it do against other 'annoying elements in your surroundings'? ;-)
- fho 5y agoI feel like this discussion is missing a bit about auditory detection. Maybe that is just my naive conclusion, but mosquitos (at least around here) make a very distinct buzzing sound. Picking that up with some sensitive microphones, isolating the buzz and triangulating in on the mosquito seems possible to me.
- krageon 5y agoThis has been done, so it is definitely possible
- go_elmo 5y agoUsing bio systems is also a way. Libella nymphs feed on mosquito larvae, so populating them to local surface waters reduces wild outbreaks
- taf2 5y agoGiven just how dangerous these lasers are to vision I really hope people to start using this setup … seems way to risky very cool but too risky. Maybe there is another tool besides lasers like a sound wave that could be used to knock the mosquitoes out of the air into a fatal collision with the ground?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- arondeparon 5y agoAll I could think of when seeing this was the Star Wars Mosquito Defense System parody from 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk
- fnord77 5y agoNathan Myhrvold was going to make a company of mosquito laser https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosquito-death-machine-nathan-myhrvold.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosqu...
- jaggs 5y agoI've often thought a laser like this might be a perfect solution to slugs and snails in vegetable gardens.
- pontifier 5y agoI've thought a lot about mosquitos lately. I almost think our desire to escape them has been a driving factor in our advancement as a species. I think one of the biggest advantages of moving to the moon or mars is never having to deal with mosquitos or rodents or cockroaches again.