Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T21:34:15.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An infra-red remote sensing system for the active detection and automatic determination of insect flight trajectories (IRADIT)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

G. W. Schaefer  and
G. A. Bent
G. W. Schaefer
Affiliation:
Ecological Physics Research Group, Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield, Bedford, MK43 OAL, UK
G. A. Bent
Affiliation:
Ecological Physics Research Group, Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield, Bedford, MK43 OAL, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A non-technical description is given of a new, powerful, low cost field system (Infra-red Active Determination of Insect Flight Trajectories or IRADIT) for detailed and automatic remote sensing studies of natural insect flight behaviour. The special requirements and difficulties of the detection problem are defined. A series of examples of field devices and techniques are presented to illustrate the key factors of the optical sensing and tracking of insects in flight. In the finally adopted IRADIT system, flying insects are differentially illuminated, under all natural light conditions, by an intense beam of pulsed near-infra-red radiation and detected using a shuttered image intensifier linked with a video camera operating at a rate of 50 frames per second. Immediate fully-automatic determination of the flight trajectories of several simultaneously detected insects was achieved, at this same high rate and in the presence of sky background photon noise, by processing the video signals with electronic circuits and a microcomputer. Flight trajectories are influenced by the local wind, whose vector must be subtracted to study insect flight behaviour. This was achieved by the use of a specially developed sensitive three-vector vane anemometer, providing digital data to the microcomputer at a minimum rate of 5 Hz. In tests of the prototype IRADIT-anemometer system in the field, insects with wing area of only 1·5 mm2 and flying against the midday sky were readily tracked at ranges up to 15 m. A range of at least 100 m is expected for nocturnal moth tracking.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 261 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bent, G. A. (1982). The immediate extraction and display of insect flight trajectories from infra-red remote sensor signals.—217 pp. Ph.D. thesis, Cranfield Institute of Technology, Bedford.Google Scholar
Bieberman, L. M. & Nudelman, S. (1971). Photoelectronic imaging devices, Vol. 1.—430 pp. New York, Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Etherinoton, K. F. (1977). Image intensifiers—an introduction.—Mullard Technical Communications no. 136, 227–239.Google Scholar
Grace, J. (in press). The measurement of wind speed.—in Marshall, B. & Woodward, I. (Eds.). Instrumentation for environmental physiology.—Cambridge, University Press.Google Scholar
Greenbank, D. O., Schaefer, G. W. & Rainey, R. C. (1980). Spruce budworm (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) moth flight and dispersal: new understanding from canopy observations, radar, and aircraft.—Mem. entomol. Soc. Can. no. 110, 49 pp.Google Scholar
Greenewalt, C. H. (1962). Dimensional relationships for flying animals.—Smithson. misc. Collns 144 (2). 1–46.Google Scholar
Kennedy, J. S. & Thomas, A. A. G. (1974). Behaviour of some low-flying aphids in wind.—Ann. appl. Biol. 76, 143–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, T. & Macaulay, E. D. M. (1976). Design and elevation of sex-attractant traps for pea moth. Cydia nigricana (Steph.) and the effect of plume shape on catches.—Ecol. Entomol. 1, 175–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murlis, J. & Bettany, B. W. (1977). Night flight towards a sex pheromone source by male Spodoptera littoralis (Boisd.) (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae).—Nature, Lond. 268, 433–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okubo, A. & Chiang, H. C. (1974). An analysis of the kinematics of swarming of Anarete pritchardi Kim (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae).—Researches Popul. Ecol. 16, 1–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rehmet, M. (1980). Xenon lamps.—Proc. Instn elect. Engrs (A) 12 (3). 190–195.Google Scholar
Richards, I. R. (1955). Photoelectric cell observations of insects in flight.—Nature, Lond. 175, 128–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, J. R., Reynolds, D. R. & Farmery, M. J. (1981). Radar observations of Spodoptera exempta, Kenya, March-April 1979.—Misc. Rep. Centre Overseas Pest Res. no. 54, 43 pp.Google Scholar
Sayer, H. J. (1956). A photographic method for the study of insect migration.—Nature, Lond. 177, 226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefer, G. W. (1976). Radar observations of insect flight.—pp. 157–197.in Rainey, R. C. (Ed.). Insect flight.—287 pp. Oxford, Blackwell Scientific Publications (Symp. R. ent. Soc. Lond. no. 7).Google Scholar
Schaefer, G. W. (1979). An airborne radar technique for the investigation and control of migrating pest insects.—Phil. Trans. R. Soc. (B) 287, 459–465.Google Scholar
Schaefer, G., Bent, G. & Cannon, R. (1979). The green invasion.—New Scientist 83, 440–441.Google Scholar
Schagen, P. (1970). Electronic aids to night vision.—Phil. Trans. R. Soc. (A) 269, 233–263.Google Scholar
Taylor, L. R. (1955). The standardization of air-flow in insect suction traps.—Ann. appl. Biol. 43, 390–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, L. R. (1974). Insect migration, flight periodicity and the boundary layer.—J. Anim. Ecol. 43, 225–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, L. R. & Palmer, J. M. P. (1972). Aerial sampling.—pp. 189–234.in Van Emden, H. F. (Ed.). Aphid technology.—344 pp. London, Academic Press.Google Scholar