Sounds of Mosquito Mating Rituals Could Lead to Quieter Drones
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Their findings about the aerodynamics of mosquito wings could have implications for building quieter drones and for devising nontoxic methods to trap and exterminate the pests.
In a research paper published in Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, a team from the university's Whiting School of Engineering, Rajat Mittal, a mechanical engineering professor, and Jung-Hee Seo, an associate research professor, explain the aerodynamics and acoustics of the mosquito mating ritual through computer modeling.
"The same wings that are producing sound are also essential for them to fly," said Mittal, an expert in computational fluid dynamics. "They somehow have to do both at the same time. And they're effective at it. That's why we have so much malaria and other mosquito borne diseases."
His team's research shows that "everything about mosquitoes seems perfectly adapted for accomplishing this sound-based communication."
"Thus," the paper states, "understanding the strategies and adaptations employed by insects such as mosquitoes to control their aeroacoustic noise could eventually provide insights into the development of quiet drones and other bioinspired micro-aerial vehicles."
In addition to devising quieter rotors for drones, Mittal said the findings will likely inform research into how sound can be used to interrupt the mating ritual. That could result in non-toxic methods to disrupt breeding and diminish mosquito populations.
Journal Reference:
Jung-Hee Seo, Tyson L Hedrick, Rajat Mittal. Mechanism and scaling of wing tone generation in mosquitoes[$]. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2019; DOI: 10.1088/1748-3190/ab54fc
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