Agricultural and Biological Research

Fly control: A simple visual perceptive method

Phi Tran*

Among insects, mosquitoes stand out as the most harmful. They cause millions of illnesses and hundreds of thousands of deaths yearly by transmitting bacteria and viruses into the human blood system through their bites. The second most harmful insects are flies, the most hated insects associated with dirtiness and illness from food poisoning.

With current technology, we can make a wheel-shaped LED light strip appear as if it is rotating around the circle, much like a rotating disco ball concept generating light spots that run into people. These light spots concepts can be minimized and applied to insects rather than people. Because the size of individual pixels of the strip is about the size of individual ball mirrors, the animation also generates similar running light spots. To scare insects away, these light spots must portray themselves as actively live, real, objects. Borrowing from our previous works on mosquitoes, we can make the ‘pixels ' light look authentic by changing its color at the right frequency. Only active, live, or living objects change their colors, size, and locations.

As a result of turning on the light, flies steered away from dinner and flocked to an identical meal out of sight.