Researchers from the University of Washington present a unique development in the field: a camera so small and light that even insects can carry it on their bodies like a backpack
As the years go by, smaller and smaller cameras enter our lives. The quality of the photographs that can be produced with a tiny smartphone camera, for example, is illustrated every year in the iPhone photography contest organized by Apple - ask the list of winners, which was recently joined by the Israeli Avishai Puterman, who took an impressive photograph of A parrot vomits in flight.
Now, in a new study, researchers from the University of Washington present a unique development in the field: a camera so small and light that even insects can carry it on their body like a backpack.
The camera developed by the researchers, and its details were recently published In the journal Science Robotics, it is wireless, weighs 250 milligrams (one tenth of the weight of a playing card) and is able to transmit and receive data up to 120 meters away. The camera is a kind of "Go Pro for insects", and it records what is happening around it from the point of view of the insect to whose back it is attached. It can be used to shoot high-resolution black-and-white videos, and it can operate for up to six hours at a time. It is controlled by a smartphone app, to which it transmits information in real time via Bluetooth.
The researchers connected the camera to two species of beetles from the family of the libertarians: Asbolus laevis and-Eleodes nigrina. "We made sure the beetles could move properly while carrying the system," says Ali Najafi, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Washington and one of the study's authors. "They were able to move freely on gravel, walk up a slope and also climb trees."
Small and economical
One of the main difficulties faced by the camera developers was the fact that cameras consume a large amount of energy, so the battery that powers them must be relatively large - a problematic requirement when the camera carries a small insect. In a smartphone camera, for example, the width of the sensor that converts the received light into an image is about 5 millimeters - but the battery needed to operate it is ten times larger and weighs over 100 grams.
Therefore, the researchers made efforts to make the new development small and energy efficient. To this end, they chose the device components carefully and designed a relatively simple system. In addition, the researchers designed the movement of the camera to be energy-efficient: the camera includes a robotic arm, which allows it to rotate within a range of 60 degrees. Giving an instruction to the camera to turn to the side requires energy - but if no further commands are given, after about a minute the arm straightens back forward by itself, without any additional investment of energy.
Despite the small dimensions of the camera, it is currently only suitable for relatively large insects, such as the beetles tested in the study. According to the researchers, in order for future versions of the development to also be suitable for smaller insects (such as bees of large species), it will be necessary to further reduce the battery of the camera. According to them, one possible way to do this is to power the camera with a solar panel.
As part of the research, the researchers also built a robot the size of an insect: 1.6 x 2 centimeters, which is controlled remotely and is able to move on the ground at a speed of up to 3.5 cm per second for between one hour and four hours and twenty minutes and carry the camera on its back.
Where does the bug go?
Photography from an insect perspective allows access to places that devices such as robots are not normally able to reach. "Insects are able to walk on the walls, on the ceiling, under the bark of trees, under the ground, in crevices on the surface of rocks or in plants," says Dr. Neta Dorchin, an entomologist from the Steinhardt School of Zoology and Museum of Nature at Tel Aviv University . "They are everywhere."
According to the researchers, beyond the contribution of the new development to the field of robotics, it will be able to help in the study of the world of insects, because it is possible to record their behavior and their reactions to various stimuli. "Such development can show us where the insect goes, where it looks for food, what it eats, what it does when we don't see it, and teach us more about behaviors such as finding mates," says Dorchin.
However, Dorchin clarifies that one subject that probably won't be possible to learn about with the help of the new development is how the insects' visual system works. "You can't see it from a camera, the insects' sense of sight is completely different from ours," she says. For example, particularly fast beetles from the subfamily Cicindelinae partially and temporarily blinded When they run (their vision becomes blurred because they are unable to process all the information that reaches the eye into an image), and the eyes of beetles from the Gyrinidae family divided into two, with the lower part intended for underwater vision and the upper one for land vision.
Six-legged spies
The new development joins a host of technological tools that are currently used in the study of insects, which include, among other things, cameras that are placed in space and that follow the movements of the insects, equipment that is attached to the insect's body and measures its reactions, and computer simulations.
Six-legged spies
The new development joins a host of technological tools that are currently used in the study of insects, which include, among other things, cameras that are placed in space and that follow the movements of the insects, equipment that is attached to the insect's body and measures its reactions, and computer simulations.
A better understanding of insect behavior is especially important today, when there are countless insect species are disappearing from the world in huge numbers. The main reason for this phenomenon is the loss and disruption of the habitats where the insects live, as well as the leakage of pesticides into the natural environment, displacement by invasive species and the effects of the climate crisis. Insects play critical roles in nature, chief among them is pollination, on which a large part of the crops grown by man depend, as well as breaking down animal corpses and turning them into fertilizer for plants and using them as an important layer in the food web. Therefore, harming insects can cause entire ecosystems to collapse, and affect people's lives significantly.
Another use of the new development that might come to mind is, of course, espionage. "In various science fiction films, such devices are sometimes mounted on insects, mainly cockroaches, and sent to collect intelligence," says Dorchin.
However, such an imaginary use raises an obvious difficulty: the need to control the insect, so that it flies to the headquarters or the secret bunker of a terrorist organization and not to its favorite field. Over the years, attempts have been made to turn fiction into science: for example, it was revealed that DARPA, the agency responsible for the technological developments of the US military, Conducted experiments for decades In order to introduce systems into the bodies of insects that will control their behavior. Does the future hold camera-carrying, remote-controlled insects that will serve intelligence agencies? There is no telling. But if you do, remember where you heard it before.
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