Engineers at Tornyol, an American startup backed by Y Combinator, have been working on an AI-powered micro-drone that could bring down the cost of mosquito eradication by 100 times. Swarms of these tiny drones could potentially hunt and shoot down mosquitoes in urban spaces, instead of using chemicals or other more expensive and hazardous population control solutions.
On July 14, Alex Toussaint, one of the founders of Tornyol, posted a video showing the company’s “first air-to-air kill”. In it, a small drone can be seen pursuing and ultimately shooting down a moth in a control test area. Obviously, a moth is not a mosquito, and the test area was very small, but this is apparently a very big step toward developing a drone capable of identifying and annihilating insects in mid-air.
Tornyol’s declared goal is the development of 40-gram drones that rely on smartphone microphones, ultrasonic sensors, and custom software to track and target insects. The drones are designed to send out ultrasonic pulses and listen for echoes with an array of microphones. Because mosquito wings create a distinct Doppler sound signature, the drones could theoretically tell mosquitoes apart from other insects.
Alex Toussaint and Clovis Piedallu, the engineers behind Tornyol, hope to one day use swarms of these micro-drones to eliminate mosquitoes from whole urban areas, with 10 of them capable of clearing one square kilometer of the winged blood-suckers.
