Would You Just Buzz Off?
This robot seeks out and destroys mosquitoes that have taken up residence in sewers where traditional control measures cannot reach them.
Mosquitoes are notorious for being carriers of various diseases, making them a significant public health concern worldwide. These tiny insects are responsible for transmitting diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, Zika virus, chikungunya, and yellow fever, among others. The scope of the public health problems caused by mosquitoes is immense, affecting millions of people each year.
Malaria, one of the deadliest mosquito-borne diseases, can be especially devastating to impacted regions. According to the World Health Organization, in 2020, there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases and approximately 627,000 deaths, with children under five years of age being the most vulnerable.
While the problems caused by mosquitoes are widespread, they are particularly severe in regions with warm climates, high population densities, and inadequate mosquito control measures. These areas often lack access to proper healthcare facilities, making it difficult to diagnose and treat mosquito-borne diseases promptly. Socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and inadequate sanitation, also contribute to the prevalence and impact of mosquito-borne diseases.
While these risk factors for mosquito-borne diseases are well-known, there have been some alarming trends noted even in cities with established control measures. In larger cities, mosquitoes have been turning to sewer systems to find the standing water that they need to reproduce. This has had the effect of helping them to evade traditional monitoring and control systems.
Recent work done by a team at the National Mosquito-Borne Diseases Control Research Center in Taiwan has put a bullseye on these hidden mosquito populations. They created robots that can seek out and eliminate mosquito larvae in sewer systems that would otherwise be inaccessible to — or at least highly undesirable for — humans. And they appear to be working; since the robots were deployed, mosquito populations in nearby areas have been shrinking.
Robots have been successfully deployed in the past to control mosquito populations, but typically on air-based platforms that look for the insects on the ground. This is the first effort seeking to root out mosquitoes in one of their last remaining strongholds that other systems cannot penetrate.
The unmanned robots are remote-controlled and get around the sewers on wheels. They are equipped with cameras and LEDs for illumination to help them detect mosquito larvae. When found, they can spray the area with insecticide or hot water, both of which are effective at killing the larvae. The robots can crawl along at about sixteen feet per minute, so over the course of a day, a single robot can cover a lot of territory. And since the robots could get into trouble where no one could rescue them, they were specially designed in a way that prevents them from getting overturned and being lost forever.
Moving forward, the researchers plan to continue improving their robot. Reducing the robot’s overall weight is one of their goals, as this would have the effect of improving the device’s battery life. They also intend to explore leveraging higher quality cameras and other sensors to enhance their ability to detect hidden mosquito populations. The team also suggests that artificial intelligence algorithms could improve the robot’s detection capabilities and make it more autonomous. The idea of a fully autonomous fleet of these robots is intriguing. Working around the clock, perhaps such an effort could even eliminate the problem entirely in large areas.
