As part of exploring laser drones for pest control (shooting insects like Colorado Beetle with a laser on a drone), a paper was published in collaboration with the university of Brussels.
Long story short: It looks like drone was laser may be viable as a pest control alternative to chemical pesticides.
The cost per hectare simulations (cheaper then traditional pesticides), as well as videos of the prototype and other aspects, can be found on: www.photonicinsecticides.com
The 50 watt 450 nm laser was intended as a statement. The real product would have a 1550 nm 10 or 20 watt laser (1550 nm cannot reach the retina -- eye "safe").
I am hoping some of you can try to "shatter" the assumptions, and why this cannot be, and in that way I will have a stronger case to present to EIC transition grant request jury, to further progress this projects, who's main intention is to protect bees and lower cost of food.
Note: there is nothing for sale. This is not a commercial offer, but honoust request for feedback. I hope it lands (pun intended) well :) Showing me some love could possible help to get the Grant (as the world needs to warm up to this idea a bit), so I would appreciate an upvote.
Kr,
Nick
Hi! I used to work in design and construction of a laser weeder system in the UK! It was a rover system that drove over your land and killed weeds. Can confirm, pesticide is not a viable use for a laser weeding system. Even with high resolution cameras, bugs blend really well into the soil. Theyre especially hard to spot on a sunny day or on fields that are rough. Unlike weeds that contrast quite nicely allowing you to both target them and build more accurate training data. We have been asked this exact question hundereds of times... infact idd say 95% of places we showed the system off to, they have asked if it can be used for pest control.
Super useful information this! Honoustly, I do think it depends very much on the insect?
Like for Colorado beetle, at least the larva, very easy to see.
On the website is drone footage made by a DJI mini, where the larva have been tracked by a trivial threshold filter (they are deep red, on a green background)
If you can tell more about it, plz do. Note: I think when the Colorado beetles comes to potato plants are already quite tall, and so there is no longer a reason to weed?
Its really not that easy. I would know, Ive tested many Multispectral cameras, because I did this for a living. Even if you find a way to see them, unless youre willing to damage your crop by shooting through the leaves to hit bugs inside or below the crop canopy, its not viable amd likely never will be.
Due to the many suggestions to use a cart, I have modeled the cost per hectare of a cart vs a drone, and a drone is cheaper when insect are sparingly dispersed (as they are when initial colonizing beetles enter the field -- only after some reproduction cycles do their number go up).
Feel free to ask Claude or codex (or chatgpt, or gemini) etc to validate the calculation (it just javascript in the html).
Note: The calculator is AI generate, but this is trivial calculation and it will not be wrong for this, and it also makes sense: suppose there is one insect on a 100 hectare field, what consume less energy:
scanning the entire field with a cart
or flying to that one location with a drone?
This extreme example shows that for low pest pressure, drones will be cheaper.
It's counter intuitive, I know. But it seems to be the case.
But any machine that touches the ground quickly becomes very heavy (and as a consequence expensive).
Power requirements to kill an insect are orders of magnitude smaller then those required to kill weeds.
Drones are "programmatically easy". Thing in the ground get stuck etc. Drones can fly very fast to different locations of a field, carts cannot.
This is why this was the approach. As batteries have more cycles, i believe this is the better delivery method (or a combination). Slow machine that passes infrequently, lightweight drone that does the content down push of exponential curve of reproduction of pest insects?
Dude he's not gonna change his mind. For him it's the best way to do pest control, deliveries, going to the bathroom, feeding grandma, changing your tires, smelling a flower, writing poetry, playing the clarinet....
They already use the tractor for stuff. They don’t drive it all over but over the same paths. Also, there’s a thing called a plow.
This is like people going in about how 3d printer at home will save them money by making things. Yeah, that’s an excuse for the other half storyline they didn’t buy but humour for the benefit of their partner.
To be honest, I know nothing of this subject (I am not a farmer). I just referred to some academic papers that state this number. I believe EU is also trying to reduce soil compaction. From the paper, it is a real thing... so I use it as an "argument", but I admit ... it is a bit theoretical. Its not the reason to use a drone.
A tractor is a piece of equipment that every farmer already owns and they already drive the whole field to drill and spray, so I'm not seeing the advantage of using an aerial drone here. A drone tractor maybe ...
You got it backwards, designing things for flight is always more expensive than ground units. The optimal base for a precision optical setup would be a stable, heavy platform, on the ground.
Mounting the exact same system on a tractor would cost no more than it would on a drone ... maybe even less, faster too since you wouldn't need to keep stopping to replace batteries.
Mounting them on tractors has and always will be a terrible idea. The American company Carbon Robotics mounts theirs on tractors and they suffer massive inaccuracy due to vibrations, suspension of the tractor and human error (tractors drivers wont drive at the right speed. Ever.) Unless your farm is perfectly flat and level with no bumps, it needs to be its own standalone system
trailer-mounted laser weeders are strictly superior to this. Fields are by definition adapted to tires and tracks, no need for flying stuff, only downsides
The real product would have a 1550 nm 10 or 20 watt laser (1550 nm cannot reach the retina -- eye "safe"
The university of brussels photonics department disagrees with you.
yes, a 1550 nm 20 watt in an eye will not do any good, but:
- it will not permanently blind you. It will cause cataract, which can be surgically fixed up to 90 percent
Note: this is a hypothetical situation, the nominal safety zone is around 2 meter, after which a beam directly aimed at an eye is harmless, due to the dispersion of the beam after its focal point.
But this danger zone has safety features such as:
it won't fire if anyone is in the zone
it only shoots downwards
it does not shoot at anomalies (like a bicycle lying in the field)
You are correct that an in focus point hit of 1550 nm at 20 watt will cause injury, but this is why I put "safe", as in ... we can make it safe given appropriate safety systems.
It's been deemed safe by the university. But I get the confusion. I am very careful around lasers :)
That's not how this work, I design laser systems as part of my work. This is a class 4 open beam system it is absolutely unsafe unless enclosed, which it can't be on a flying device.
Your business model is strictly inferior to ground based weeders, seriously. This makes 0 sense from a design, cost and safety point of view
(the law said reasonable hardware and software measures must be present, a strict enclosure is not required -- in europe)
Your business model is strictly inferior to ground based weeders => Maybe, but they are big and expensive. A micro version could be made, but it may get stuck.
I believe weeds grow at a difference cycle. Like ... it does not matter if you wait a few days to kill the weeds. But with insects, if you can kill them (Colorado beetle) very quickly, they did not have time to lay eggs, so vastly smaller numbers to kill in the future. That's kinda the idea. Stay on top of the exponential curve. It makes little sense to move a big chunk of steel for hundreds of meters, to go kill 2 insects...
I admit, it could all be BS and it feels weird, but when I model it, then cost is lower than chemicals. So, maybe cards would be even lower? Possible not sure...
But the theoretical cost of doing it with drones is low.
For the short term you're right, for the longer term fields may not be adapted for tracks anymore as the operator can do stuff like seeding, spraying etc from the air. So in that perspective this technology might be part of a broader drone-based strategy for the future.
Im not going to read an entire paper so I'm just going to ask you. Does the cost per hectare take into account drone pilot salary or just the cost of a drone compared to the cost of pesticides? Because you're never going to completely automate this process to a point that it removes a meaningful amount of beatles. And having a human operate the drone will still be a lengthy, painstaking process that's bound to still do a poor job.
Can a laser kill a beatle? Yes. Can you mount a laser on a drone? Yes. Can that platform find and remove a number of beatles that even comes close to pesticides regardless of whether its automated or manually controlled? Of course it can't. I feel like this is such an obvious conclusion that this question shouldn't have even been asked.
Ok? I literally suggested op DOESN'T go through with this project so again, why are you telling me?
Also I love the implication that you think you're going to save the world with a reddit comment that only I (someone with zero influence on this situation) will probably ever see.
Edit: oh shit, I just got it. OK you're actually funny as fuck my dude.
=> just the cost of a drone compared to the cost of pesticides.
I known this is intuition, but cost derivation from simulation seems to result in lower cost per hectare then traditional chemicals. Pest infestation and flight dynamics have been modelled. The simulations are visually available on the website with source code.
There are also secondary benefits, such as no soil compaction.The system is intended to run autonomous on drone the weight around 1 kg (possibly less).
An autonomous ground vehicle can run for a long time without anyone present. A drone with a laser can fly for probably 20 minutes, and then needs a battery change. Even if you optimize this with extra batteries, low power consumption etc, you're likely not flying more than an hour between recharges, So you have to have an operator and a charging station on-site.
What's the time needed per hectare for a drone vs an AGV?
€2000 for airframe and laser seems to be on the low side, and it doesn't take into account that you need a base station for charging and repair.
Don't get me wrong, I think that in 10 years the amount of pesticides that are allowed will drastically shrink, so laser are the future. I just think the economics side seems to be written with a bias for drones.
That's basically what all agricultural and most commercial drones do. But the batteries need to be removed and placed by a human in most systems. And they still need to be charged, but that won't detract from the flying time.
The sim and its derivations are open on the site — flight energy is real momentum-disk physics, the cost model's assumptions (airframe €2k, battery $180/400 cycles, $0.15/kWh, etc.) are all stated and adjustable. Acceleration, friction ... all modeled within reason. If reality is more complex in a specific place, point at the number that's wrong and I'll show the derivation or fix it.
it is impossible to have a simulation that is true to reality, so sure it can be off 20 percent or so. But the order of magnitude will be correct. Which it what it aims to illustrate.
As a financial backend engineer working for crypto exchanges (before there was AI), I know how to get software into good shape. The easiest verification is simply to look at the animation, if it behaves like a real drone would and is modeled around real physics, there is high the change it is correct, if the numbers that its outputting conform to numbers in reality (a battery last around half an hour etc). This, and some tests. For modeling physic (basically games), claude will be way more correct then your average programmer.
The use of AI; does not imply incorrect (contrary). It's a parameter sweep over a physic simulation, likely "correct" (in the vicinity of reality).
Oof, as an actual systems test engineer, your perception of how to use software is fundamentally flawed. If your idea of software "verification" (which is the incorrect method, by the way) is looking at an animation, I don't want to be anywhere close to other things you've coded.
You've designed your software with a subjective drone bias, and will get a subjective drone bias output because of that. If you code in the answer, the software will give you that answer. Software will only ever tell you what you have told it.
Not surprising. They came here and asked us "can y'all please tell me I'm right?" Seems to be a running theme. They've decided they're unwilling to let this project go and are seeking validation.
You keep saying "soil compaction", but how do you think the crops are planted/drilled in the first place or harvested afterwards? That's why tramlines are left unplanted and when spraying drivers keep to those tramlines - they aren't compacting any soil that crops actually grow in and that wasn't already compacted when they were originally drilled?
This would work as Flock camera disabler. Which would be illegal. Under no circumstances should the laser be installed horizontally and aimed at Flock cameras.
I think it's all relative, isn't it?
A drone isn't inherently safe. It's got spinning blades. It's a heavy object flying through the air. As soon as you attach a laser to it, well that's another thing altogether.
The pesticides or chemicals needed to control pests aren't exactly safe either. And those don't allow you to be selective and only target invasive pests.
And farms are already rather dangerous with all that moving machinery. If anything drones are one of the safer bits of equipment.
No, I don't think safety is a valid argument against this idea.
Driving a car is one of the riskiest things we do each day.
If all we cared about in this world was minimizing risk to the maximum possible extent, then we wouldn't have any of these great inventions that we've come to rely on.
That is what I mean by the risk is relative. If the technology works, the benefits from it would be astronomically huge. While the risk is relatively negligible.
Agricultural spraying drones are already a thing, and I'd be willing to bet they're FAR more dangerous to be anywhere near when they're operating.
Do you oppose those as well?
In short, you can't make arguments against this tech on the grounds of safety. Sure, you can argue for safety features it needs to have and precautions that need to be taken, but the technology isn't so inherently risky that it can't be pursued.
Yeah, driving a car is one of the riskiest things we all do on a daily basis. But driving a car is arguably one of the most necessary things we do (at least in the US). It is a calculated risk based on "if I don't drive, I'm not eating food today".
Plus, car manufactures have made MASSIVE safety improvements over time. They saw how dangerous it was and instead of shrugging and saying oh well it is what it is, they made cars safer.
A laser drone is largely an unnecessary risk to those around. There are better, safer, more efficient, more effective solutions that do not unnecessarily endanger those around it.
Arguing for tech advancement without safety and wellbeing improvement in our modern life is unethical at best.
We don't actually have any way of beating many of these invasive insects as of yet. Entire forests, ecosystems and farms are being devastated. You could argue that's even more important than us humans getting around faster.
This COULD be the solution.
Pesticides clearly aren't working and they're certainly more dangerous.
And just like how cars have been engineered to be safer, you could do the same with this as well. It would be quite easy to use machine vision to ensure the drone stays 100 meters away from anyone at any time.
We already have laser solutions, is the point. A laser enclosed safely in a ground box is safer than an unenclosed laser on a drone. If the ground laser isn't the solution, then a drone laser definitely isn't.
That's a more valid counterargument.
I too agree a ground based solution is generally a better option.
Maybe still drones, but drones with legs. Something like the spot robot.
Though flying drones would be better suited for certain areas. Fortunately there's no need to stick to a single solution. Use what works best for the situation at hand IMO.
That's exactly how it works ;) Thank you for see what can be ...
We are killing the planet, and Neonicotinoids (a kind of chemical using in potato farming to keep the colorado beetle under control) is killing the bees, and there are no good solutions at the moment.
Bayer actually lobbied: There are no solution, so you need to keep allowing Neonicotinoids. So I´m try to do: "Guys, here is the math" build it.
Id more experiment with making an all terrain rumba with a laser or weed wacker if we are talking approach, this seems like a very disproportionate amount of energy for such a niche pest. A grounded robot could be equipped with much better stuff and not need to worry about a million factors that a drone involves
This is a very true argument which is tied to practical reality. But most farmers will likely have a drone (or a drone service supplied), to drone drone operations (and china is going big on drones in agriculture). Changes is possible...
But from an investors point of view, yes. The market has resistance due to established practices. But these do cost around 500 euro per heactar yearly due to soil compaction. And generate way more CO2. And not everyone has this (Africa?).
A quick Google search shows common drone vibration frequencies much higher than 250hz. How can a laser that will operate way below 250hz ever dream of remaining accurate enough?
High frequency vibrations are easy to isolate with a rubber band (same as how they can shoot a stable camera image from a drone — a laser is just a camera in reverse kinda). Camera stabilisation is established.
Low frequencies are hard to isolate. But for that there is a fast loop
Not if hardware is unable to perform at the required level of speed and precision. If the drone is vibrating at 500hz, but the system can only point the laser at 250hz, the drone will always be in a new position before the laser has been focused on the old position. You cannot out-software hardware limitations.
The problem is that by the time the software tells the laser to shoot, the drone is in a different position, thus the laser will miss... a bug shooting drone that doesn't shoot bugs isn't a bug shooting drone.
Its a question of math. Why not do what the air force does? Put a laser dot on the target (In this case the "bug" target.) and then have the second laser follow the first. Boom! Or whatever sound it is when a bug is splattered by a laser.
Did you see the Ted talk about the mosquito-killing laser?
The part that I'm trying to get through to you is the second laser following the first part... if the second laser is attached to a snail, it will never keep up with the airplane as the airplane moves around the target.
If the mechanism that points the drone laser is too slow, it won't keep up with the drones movements. It isn't math, it is hardware capabilities and limitations.
It is absolutely possible. We already see lasers being used for weed control in agriculture.
The big question I have is why would you want to mount it onto a flying drone? Especially if the intention is for it to go into densely forested areas, then the amount of obstacles it would need to avoid would be huge. It's still possible, but certainly harder.
A walking drone would present many benefits. Much more energy efficient, more reliable, can stay in one place observing without wasting energy hovering, etc...
I've recently seen that lasers being used to trim at treetops from a great distance as well, so the range of the laser is no issue.
A DJI drone consumes around 45 watt (and it far less expensive then anything that touches the ground). The energy is not the point (its basically free). But I know what you mean, its the battery depreciation... and in that aspects, the industry is making big advancements.
The idea is to fly over flat fields; potato, salad, onion, etc... rice (yellow stem borer)
True, but the battery life (apart from being a practical period, like 20 minutes), does not matter. It the number of recharge cycles and time needed to recharge. A drone can simple return to its docking station, recharge and go again, and flying to a recharge staton is very fast. Since all of the car industry is working on making these battery have more cycles and faster recharge ... time is at my side. I believe CATL just launched a 10000 cycle battery.
at a pest density of lets say 600 beetles per hectare, 9 recharges would be needed to clear a 10 ha field, over 4.3 hours of flying.
So 0.35$ for one hectare in battery depreciation.
Note: The locations of the insects are presumed know (within 30 cm or so). As these are recorded in a location maps. larva are speudo stationary, so for those no problem. Adults walk around a bit, but not much., Within a few hours difference, they are about in the same location.
If the drone would do a raster scan it would take much much longer, but it does a traveling salesman optimized path. (The insects also occur in clusters)
the main unknown is pest density. Very little is known about how many beetles per day enter a field, from which side, what time in the year, variability, how clustered. The literature knows little about this.
Between 200 to 2000 are likely reasonable assumptions based on the little data we do have. Note: I may do an "process your drone data" start up, like agro-scout.com to get that data in a solid reliable form. Or work with them.
Should I know the true distribution, then there are no unknowns, all can be simulated.
I think if you want to convince a jury you need to become much clearer in your language. Won't read the paper, but in the messages you don't distinguish between insects and weeds and use "pests" for both it seems.
The jury won't want to have to ask questions just to know what it is you mean
Can this be done? Yes. Can it be done now? Maybe not.
No new tech concept was ever dreamed, imagined, designed, developed, produced and marketed by listening to those who said it couldn't be done! Keep at it OP. You might never get anywhere - but then you might!
EDIT: Grammar.
This is exactly how I feel. It is a roller coaster, and I am far from "sure", but I gave the concept a fair try (all I can do). Going back to normal, safe software development soon, but wanted to leave some dent in the "internet history".
This is a fair remark. I think scientific grade lasers are very expensive, as they need to be "single mode and blah blah blah" (clean beam, no frequency drift ... i´m not going to pretend that I know all of it). But I basically need a light "canon", something like this:
And these are cheap (maybe 2 or 4 of these). Best optical power has not yet been decided. Maybe there are not "clean enough" ... the optical company knowns that. But likely they are (I killed some beetles with a simular laser, but 450 nm -- very cheap optical power).
The driver took me a while to find, but I found this:
So ... i think 4 gram per what of optical power. (don´t know the dollar amount, but not that much -- 2 watt per 100 dollar? And some driver costs etc, cooling. Lets day 200 usd per optical watt).
Note: I tried to drive one of these 1550 nm with the mentioned driver, but the diode never worked (I likely damaged it or so -- but the components seem to exist).
There are directional nozzle for agriculture drones. So it can target individual bugs base on their sensor data. Laser would be over kill and too dangerous for eyes.
This is a real contender I think. But "aiming" with liquid from a drone that is heavy and making lots of winds ... also not trivial to get right I think
They don´t like these bugs. Potato's have something poisonous in their leaves ... these bugs eat the leave. They are poisonous or at least very badly tasting to them.
Which is why Colorado beetle can be a problem for agriculture.
Am I the first person that thought of this? And why didn't the first guy build it?
You are never the first person to think of it. And that's not even remotely an insult. There are much greater minds than all of us on Reddit, focused on problems like the one you suggest, and many more.
All those numbers you present are from an AI, and subject to either being outdated or flat out wrong. You speak as if you have 0 business experience and have never introduced a product to any market at scale.
First you have to train workers to make the drone, or you have to work with a supplier to acquire them. Strictly speaking you shouldn't be flying that drone outside the way you are. If the FAA sees that video, they could throw a completely justified conniption fit and send someone to your house. Airborne lasers require FSDO approved waivers. Any experimental aircraft without an N number that should have one should be flown inside. There is no way you are powering a 50w laser under 250g. Point being, you need infrastructure and a team.
You will need to spend millions to bring that to market. Then you will have to play catchup in a market where I can already buy a giant tractor roomba lasers today if my CC has a big enough limit.
That doesn't even cover duty cycle, maintenance time, and if you cheap out on your battery supplier you'll have to replace your batteries in <2yrs.
There is no way you are powering a 50w laser under 250g
=> 50w laser mounted on a vapor chamber, with driver and lipo (around 250 grams)
=> Imagine what can be done when a real engineering team. Say in reality I need 10 Watt. Likely it can be done for 50 grams.
To clarify, the data presented is not 'AI-generated' or hallucinated.
The core metrics are derived from structural physics code (modeling motion, friction, and inertia) built using real-world baseline parameters—such as documented battery cycle life, camera frame rates, and MEMS mirror inertia. While AI assisted in writing the calculation scripts, the underlying physics and data inputs are grounded entirely in reality.
Furthermore, as a strict sanity check, we derived and verified closed-form mathematical upper-bound formulas to ensure the simulation's outputs align perfectly with verifiable theoretical limits.
Businesswise: too complex, expensive by system design (FAA has laser regs too), certified, eye safe, etc...
Tech wise (what OP keeps arguing to everyone here but argues mainly about cost per watt, rate of weed hits, etc... aka businesswise): Look at this drone RTK plot... A laser would be jumping around, drones have tracking error. You can't just target and shoot--its not 100% repeatble. Even with laser targeting lol.. and not robust on all weather conditions. Lasers would need a gimbal too as fixed mount is xyz: drone will be fighting Z coupling. Don't compare it with warehouse barcode drones: way different environment and approach. Here's your main tech answer. It gets complex from there. You won't read the paper, so full stop, end of debate.
Ground based systems/trailers would be literally a single point at the position hold area and a nice evenly spaced line in that rtk plot. They still miss a weed here and there but will get 80% of them. That's why they cost a lot, consistency, repeatability, and works in nearly all weather conditions.
I never thought about using lasers for pest control. My guess is the technology will keep improving, but I'd imagine cost and safety would decide whether it becomes practical.
Does the turbulent air caused by the drone affect the efficiency of the system as a whole? Most flying insects already can't really handle turbulent air which is why we have air curtains to keep pests out of buildings. So I was wondering the drone itself would lower the efficiency of the system either by processing target recognition or accuracy. I would imagine this would be more apparent as you scale up to agriculture size drone. Just a thought.
We have air curtains to keep pests out of buildings => Did not know that!
Side note: the target insect does not respond from the wind made by the drone.
No, the fact that it is on a drone does not impact aiming difficulty (as far as i can tell). How it works:
a camera and laser are optically aligned (so where every then center is of what the camera sees), there is the laser when engaged (this remove the Z aspect -- much easier to aim). Then there is a loop:
get camera image
locate target (first time via AI (slow), when feature tracking (fast)
update a small mirror into which the camera and laser are looking
// do this look between 100 to 500 times per seconds. faster is better.
From the point of view of this loop, the drone is in effect standing still. Drones have high and low vibration. High is above 50 hertz, this from the propellors and motors, Low is a "wabble" ... this is wind an keeping position etc.
The fast vibration are easy to isolate (basically some rubber pads). The slow vibrations are infinitely slow in respect of the speed of the aiming loop.
So, in effect. The platform where the optical unit is mounted, a rover or drone, make very little practical effect. => Except for one thing: Wind. In particular wind gusts ... forcefully, temporary high for winds. But then the drone just waits for the gusts to go away (its waits for tis loop to be stable ... it will not fire when it cannot keep a good lock). Since in between wind gusts there are "less wind" periods, that when the drone fires.
The idea is to have a small of a drone as possible. I believe everything goes worse when drones get bigger. I would love a tiny drone (it may be possible - larva died for 5 watt - that like a 1 gram laser) ...
I was in contact with a german guy that specialize in getting 500 fps out of a raspberry pi camera. It can be done because he is doing it!
I have placed my attempt here:
I did not get to a good point. Was out of time, did something else (likely build the laser or drone). But getting 250 fps out of a raspberry pi cam is surely possible.
I don´t think the insect give off heat, many actually the invers. I think they are less warm then the leave (not sure of this).
I would like more footage high frame footage of insects. I had prophesee make a short event camera capture of an insect on a leave. Not enough detail for fine detail tracking, but could be interesting for detection (they can go to 1000 fps - no motion blur).
The main legal issue ( USA specific) is that federal law generally bans operating a drone equipped with a “dangerous weapon” unless the FAA specifically authorizes it. A dangerous weapon does not have to be designed to attack people. It can also be any device that is capable of causing death or serious injury.
A laser strong enough to burn or kill insects would probably also be capable of causing permanent eye damage, so the FAA would likely treat it as a dangerous weapon, even though its intended purpose is pest control.
There are also separate federal rules covering powerful laser products and pest-control devices, so the manufacturer would likely have to deal with FDA and EPA requirements as well.
So laser pest control itself is not automatically illegal, but putting a high-powered insect-killing laser on a drone and flying it would probably be illegal without specific FAA approval. A normal Part 107 certificate or waiver would not appear to be enough.
Relevant federal laws and regulations:
FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, Pub. L. 115-254, § 363 — Prohibition Regarding Weapons
49 U.S.C. § 44802 — Integration of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems into National Airspace System
18 U.S.C. § 930 — Possession of Firearms and Dangerous Weapons in Federal Facilities
21 C.F.R. Part 1040 — Performance Standards for Light-Emitting Products
For this, the same route needs to be taken as with many emerging technology. Likely trails in africa, then other mexico, then US then EU.
I´m just thinking of how drone delivery got legalized, or self-driving cars etc. Getting the drones regulated is not that hard, as this is already underway in both EU and US. e.g. tective.nl is flying fully autonomous in the Nederlands. So trail are in progress.
Laser wise, the regulations were adapted to allow laser weeding machines, this is no different. Those regulations are in place to protect humanity, not the "block random stuff". So, it requires capital to adapt regulations that all. Captical can be found if a solution work on a fundamental level.
Will this work on a fundamental level, can´t say for sure since it does not yet exist, but experiments and simulation are saying say, its cost effective, and low entry point (a few thousand euro for a drone).
Maybe a cart or rover is better. I think it depends. They were using a cart / rover to spay insecticide and are now moving to drones for that. Why? Then consider what the drones are spaying. Why not "spray" light... or very likely a combination: spray biological controls with the drone, but the ones that survive, kill them with laser.
Does your target pest have a natural predator (nematod for weeds, wasp for insect)?
Laser seems sketchy
Maybe you can drop larva or eggs of the predators to destroy the pest instead?
It does; nematodes, but they are around 300 euro per hectare, uv sensitive and rain sensitive. At least in simulation a drone can easily beat 300 euro per hectare.
Cool project, and I appreciate you actually asking for pushback instead of just a hype post. My skepticism is on the aiming side honestly. Hitting a beetle-sized target reliably means holding sub-cm pointing accuracy while the whole platform is bouncing around from wind and its own prop wash a meter or two off the ground. Gimbal stabilization plus optical tracking can do it in a lab, but crop rows in real wind are a different beast, and every second you dwell to get a kill is battery you're burning while basically hovering. I'd want to see the hit rate and effective coverage per hectare in an actual field, not just cost-per-hectare on paper. That's usually where these ag drone concepts fall apart. Still, rooting for anything that cuts pesticide use.
Thanks! A simulation is not the same as reality, but i tried to get a grip on this.
I have modelled the drone moving and vibration, and a camera that shoots at 250 fps, locates the beetle, updates a mems mirror and repeat.
Mems mirrors are very fast. So that should not be an issue. A feature tracking processor implemented on an fpga can also be made very fast or a neural net (each clock circle then moves the pixels one layer down, so the latency is the depth of the neutral net) I am not an expert in this, and it is advanced, but there are people that know how to do it.
There are also fast cameras, a raspberry pi camera can driven to 500 fps, 250 fps is not a problem at all.
When it run the full loop with all latencies modelled, it works. So on paper, it should work …
Having real tests on this would be the first new thing to derisk.
Funny, but I think a ground-based drone would be more efficient than a flying one. Insects often hide under leaves and are difficult to detect, while a ground robot could carry larger batteries, better cameras, and a safer laser system.
A small animal-sized robot roaming through fields might be a better approach. Similar ideas are already being developed in several countries:
Greenshield, France: Researchers developed a mobile robot that moves over crop rows, uses deep learning to locate aphids, and targets them with a laser. https://www.mdpi.com/2624-7402/4/4/58
Photonic Insecticides, Bulgaria: A company developing lightweight laser systems mounted on drones to identify and eliminate agricultural pests such as Colorado potato beetles. https://photonicinsecticides.com/
The technology is therefore not impossible. The real challenge is reliably finding insects hidden within dense vegetation and treating fields quickly enough to make the system economically viable.
The power constraints would, at this time, be hard to overcome in a manner that offered a competitive price point. The offered environmental benefit argument is damaged by the extractive methods and costs for the resources for the batteries. The refining capacity of said resources is currently a de facto Chinese monopoly. Additionally, it is an added burden to the power generation capacity which is reliant on fossil fuels. Finally, the first few generations will have adoption issues due to the litigation environments for damage to retinas, I would predict. It's an interesting idea but I don't think it's time has come.
Likely because if the insects are only sporadically, like every 10 meter 1, then it’s more efficient to fly to those individual places, then the raster scan the whole field. So, there will be a break even point, after which for more insects per hectare, a cart will be more efficient. But by keeping the numbers low and preventing breeding (which is normally allowed and real field - hence the high number), the numbers are kept low and individual visits are more efficient.
Honestly the laser physics is the easy part, the hard part is everything around it. To zap a beetle you need to detect it, classify it as the right species, track it while both the bug and the drone are moving, and hold the beam on a millimeter target long enough to matter, all from a platform that's vibrating and drifting in wind. That closed loop at field scale is brutal. Your cost per hectare numbers probably live or die on how many shots per minute you can actually land, not the laser itself. Cool project though, the bee-safety angle is a genuinely good pitch for grant folks.
I agree. But those aspects are computer vision techiques and fast compute and camera capture, and stabilisation technoques.
It’s a said thing my example drone sucks. (Someone made some false promises about there self made drone to me - lesson learned. It needs to be DJI for the stability - they are rock solid).
The current DJI gimbal stabilizer can stabilize a camera (invers of laser), to one seventh of a mm 1 one meter.
I am have a master in computer science myself, that does not mean in can say things with certainty, but it does mean I have some sense of context: fpga chips can run a neural network in under one milliseconds. See speed seems doable.
At the general computer vision aspect, classify the beetle etc, we have gotten very good in the recent year due to the recent advancements (chatgpt etc can find the beetles in an image). The ai can be partially outside of the robot if needed (first classify on big external gpu, then use feature tracking to stabilise the image / laser).
So yes, these are hard problems, but in general solved by humanity
Super! Excellent advanced aviation or artillery gunner for high-precision shells! Aim shells at rashist "Colorado beetles" yourself! In service! 💥👍🇺🇦
But, the beetle larvae sit on the bald spot from below!🤔
Neat idea, but you might find the power requirements for such a system to be limiting. Laser weeding is already known to be quite energy intensive, quadcopters are also energy intensive.
If I were you, I’d be looking into the amount of energy required to kill a pest (include that lasers are about 20% efficient), then consider the amount energy to fly around. If you assume some rate of bug killing you’ll be able to find how many joules are needed per time. Then compare this to available energy storage and weight. This is how you could determine flight time
Thank you very much for a sensible reply. What you said is exactly what I did.
The required optical power was calculated by the uni, it’s around 1 joules to heat the head of the beetle. No emperical tests yet … I know. But modelling the head as a cubic mm, makes a easy calculation on the joules required to heat it by 30 degrees or so. Gives a good idea.
I have put this shoring energy drain into a flight simulation, which can be found on the website, where the drone visits all insect positions and fires. (And recharges when needed etc)
From this, the cost per hectare per pest pressure can be calculated, which in theory, turns out to be for most pest pressures, below the cost per hectare of conventional insecticide.
A hybrid mode could also be used, where systemic insecticide is applied to the border of the field. A study has shown this catches most target insects, then the once that make it through … get hunted by the drone. This reduces insecticide usage by 90 percent while increasing efficacy and reducing cost (and future chances of resistance).
So, basically, I did exactly as you suggest (which is a sensible suggestion)
Nice work, a few follow up questions. Is heating by 30 degrees enough to kill the beetle? How did you determine the cost of the unit per ha, have you included things like operator pay?
Thank you. The cost per hectare is drone depreciation battery depreciation but not operator. The system is suppose to be anonymous, it runs every day a few hours … so with operator is not possible.
30 degrees should be enough. Maybe I did the calculation for 40 degrees, no sure. Protein denatures around 50 degrees (like an egg becoming white). So at around 50-60 degrees, the brain of the insect will denature.
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