PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

Jin Lei from Aofeisi Quantum Bit Report | WeChat Official Account QbitAI

People have suffered from mosquitoes for a long time.

Especially on summer nights, the buzzing sound near our ears often leads to “fighting” them for hundreds of rounds.

To address this, a foreign PhD has DIYed a high-end method for killing mosquitoes:

Computer vision accurately locates and laser kills instantly.

It is built using a Raspberry Pi.

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

Raspberry Pi Laser Mosquito Gun

This high-end mosquito killing method requires what equipment?

It mainly includes four major components:

  • More than 200 pieces of Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+: It uses a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, specifically the Broadcom BCM2837B0 model.

  • Raspberry Pi Camera: The specific model is Sony IMX219, with a resolution of 8 million pixels.

  • Ammeter (Galvanometer): Approximately 20 kPPS.

  • Laser: Power around 1W, with a wavelength of 450nm.

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

The size of a mosquito ranges from 1mm to 5mm, which is the main standard for detecting and locating mosquitoes.

Previous methods using ultrasonic waves and other forms have their limitations, such as the inability to handle multiple mosquitoes at once.

Therefore, in this research, the method used for the task of locating mosquitoes is computer vision technology.

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

Then, the heat from the laser is used to eliminate it.

Although the research did not provide specific operational examples, back in 2010, National Geographic published a video demonstrating a similar working principle:

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

In slow-motion, the footage looks like this:

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

How Does AI Kill Mosquitoes? Steps Involved

Specifically, the process of AI exterminating mosquitoes is illustrated in the following image:

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

First, use the target tracking function in OpenCV (this research uses TrackerCSRT) to locate the mosquito.

Then calculate the x, y, z coordinates of the mosquito’s position and send the coordinate information to the ammeter.

Finally, after completing the above tasks, the laser is activated and fired.

After the laser is fired, a confirmation process will check if the target has been eliminated.

If the mosquito has been exterminated, it returns to the initial step to look for the next target; otherwise, it recalculates the mosquito’s coordinates to attempt another shot.

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

Of course, in addition to using target tracking, researchers also compared other positioning methods.

After comparison, it was found that the target tracking method had a higher success rate, but it was only 76%.

The researchers believe that this study at least proves that “AI + laser mosquito extermination” is feasible, but further in-depth research is needed to improve the success rate.

Additionally, researchers proposed the idea of mounting it on drones for future fieldwork.

Netizens: Will It Accidentally Harm Humans?

Although this “high-end mosquito killing” method built with Raspberry Pi is refreshing, it has also sparked heated discussions among netizens.

Some believe this method is unsafe, mainly arguing that a 1W laser could harm human eyesight, especially when mounted on drones:

A drone equipped with lasers sounds worse than mosquitoes.

PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

But some netizens seem to be quite “obsessed” with such products, exclaiming:

When can I buy one?

So, would you accept this method of killing mosquitoes?

Feel free to leave your comments in the discussion section~

References:

[1]https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202101.0412/v1[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26376376[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKm8FolQ7jw

The End

This article is original content by NetEase News • NetEase account, part of the content incentive program. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

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PhD Uses Raspberry Pi to Create Laser Mosquito Gun

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