Posted on Jun 9, 2022
It’s a moth, it’s a drone, it’s ‘Smellicopter’
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Melanie Anderson pulls aside a small curtain in a dark closet. A dim red bulb is the only light.
“This might take a while because I want to grab male moths,” she says, reaching into the cage behind the curtain.
She pulls out a mottled brown Manduca sexta, sometimes called the Carolina sphinx moth. It’s big — larger than her palm.
“That looks like a female. It has slightly smaller antennae,” she says. “So I’m going to put it back.”
For this University of Washington engineer, the antennae are the key.
Anderson reaches once, then twice more into the fluttering mass of insects in the cage. She finally snags a male.
This moth’s antennae have a cyborg destiny aboard a new kind of drone called the “Smellicopter.”
“I tell people ‘moth antenna’ and they’re like, ‘What does ‘MOTH’ stand for?’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no. The insect,’ Anderson explains. “We actually use a live biologic component of the moth — the antenna — and we put it on an electrical circuit to read signals from it.”
“This might take a while because I want to grab male moths,” she says, reaching into the cage behind the curtain.
She pulls out a mottled brown Manduca sexta, sometimes called the Carolina sphinx moth. It’s big — larger than her palm.
“That looks like a female. It has slightly smaller antennae,” she says. “So I’m going to put it back.”
For this University of Washington engineer, the antennae are the key.
Anderson reaches once, then twice more into the fluttering mass of insects in the cage. She finally snags a male.
This moth’s antennae have a cyborg destiny aboard a new kind of drone called the “Smellicopter.”
“I tell people ‘moth antenna’ and they’re like, ‘What does ‘MOTH’ stand for?’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no. The insect,’ Anderson explains. “We actually use a live biologic component of the moth — the antenna — and we put it on an electrical circuit to read signals from it.”
It’s a moth, it’s a drone, it’s ‘Smellicopter’
Posted from opb.org
Technology
University of Washington
Wildlife
Posted 2 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Super smellers
A moth’s antennae are an evolutionary masterpiece of smell. They can pick up the faintest of scents.
“Biology can detect chemicals at a level that far exceeds anything that’s synthetic — not by a factor of a 1000 or 10,000 or 100,000 or even a million factors. Even greater than that,” said University of Washington biologist Tom Daniel. “So, we use the extreme sensitivity of odor detection in living systems and asked, ‘How could we integrate it into synthetic systems?’”
Daniel, who’s head of a consortium of researchers looking at nature-inspired flight systems, asked Anderson this question, and she’s gotten her Ph.D. answering it.
Anderson and her research partner Joseph Sullivan have created a drone that taps into the extraordinary sensory power of a moth’s antenna.
“You can have it in a chemical plant to be able to survey that area and find the source of an odor leak or a gas leak very quickly before it gets out of hand,” Anderson said. “It can be used to replace search dogs or search and rescue workers in dangerous situations. So it can really save lives.”
It works by bringing biology, robotics, coding, aerodynamics and a host of other disciplines together to create one device.
After cutting the antenna off an anesthetized moth, Anderson uses tweezers to thread the hollow structure onto a hair-like wire of a circuit."...
..."Super smellers
A moth’s antennae are an evolutionary masterpiece of smell. They can pick up the faintest of scents.
“Biology can detect chemicals at a level that far exceeds anything that’s synthetic — not by a factor of a 1000 or 10,000 or 100,000 or even a million factors. Even greater than that,” said University of Washington biologist Tom Daniel. “So, we use the extreme sensitivity of odor detection in living systems and asked, ‘How could we integrate it into synthetic systems?’”
Daniel, who’s head of a consortium of researchers looking at nature-inspired flight systems, asked Anderson this question, and she’s gotten her Ph.D. answering it.
Anderson and her research partner Joseph Sullivan have created a drone that taps into the extraordinary sensory power of a moth’s antenna.
“You can have it in a chemical plant to be able to survey that area and find the source of an odor leak or a gas leak very quickly before it gets out of hand,” Anderson said. “It can be used to replace search dogs or search and rescue workers in dangerous situations. So it can really save lives.”
It works by bringing biology, robotics, coding, aerodynamics and a host of other disciplines together to create one device.
After cutting the antenna off an anesthetized moth, Anderson uses tweezers to thread the hollow structure onto a hair-like wire of a circuit."...
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good morning, thank you for the solid read/share of the most informational good buddy.
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