What if mosquitos weren’t just annoying bugs, but instead were bio-inspiring features? In episode 78, we talk with Richard Bomphrey from the University of London’s Royal Veterinary College about how mosquitoes can detect surfaces using the airflow caused by the movement of their own wings … and the autonomous drones he developed to mimic them. His article “Aerodynamic imaging by mosquitoes inspires a surface detector for autonomous flying vehicles,” (open-access here) was published on May 8, 2020 with multiple co-authors in the journal Science.
Websites and other resources
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- Richard’s lab
- Science Perspective article on Richard’s study “Drones become even more insect-like“
- Richard’s 2017 article on mosquito aerodynamics
- Science video of mosquito simulation:
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- Nature video of Richard’s drone flying with sensors:
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Hosts / Producers
Ryan Watkins & Doug Leigh
How to Cite
Watkins, R., Leigh, D., & Bomphrey, R.. (2020). Parsing Science – Mosquito-inspired Biotechnology. doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12622817Music
What’s The Angle? by Shane Ivers
Transcript
Coming soon
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