Dr. David Hu, professor of mechanical engineering and biology at Georgia Institute of Technology, says mosquitoes could provide clues to building flying robots of the future.
In a new study, Dr. Hu and his team of researchers studied how mosquitoes survive the impact of raindrops that are more than 50 times their body mass.
“This could directly impact the research for a robust flying vehicle,” Hu told Yahoo News. “That’s important. The dream is that these autonomous robots will be able to fly outdoors.”
The answer to how the tiny insects survive such a powerful impact could have applications in both science and medicine. Hu’s team used high-speed cameras to capture images of the mosquitoes and raindrops at 4,000 frames per second. The average camera records at 24 frames per second.
- How a mosquito survives a raindrop hit (sciencenews.org)
- How a mosquito survives a raindrop hit (thesciencebulletin.wordpress.com)
- For the first time ever, high-speed camera reveals how mosquitos survive collisions with raindrops (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
- How the Mosquito Survives Collisions with Raindrops video (usurpingunencumberedness.wordpress.com)
- Smartphone Apps Claim To Keep Mosquitoes At Bay, But Do They Work? (minnesota.cbslocal.com)
- Experts say mosquito population will surge this summer (khou.com)