Hello everyone, I've recently posted an update, but the email didn't get sent. This update is just so you get the notification, the original one being here : https://manifund.org//projects/build-anti-mosqu?tab=comments#dad95fde-da3d-4d86-819e-fada071fb798

thank you!

@vbuterin Yes, there’s definitely a lack of awareness in the west about the negative impact of mosquitoes. I’ve never thought about that specific second-order effect, but it’s definitely an issue in many places. Also, given that many people in the west do not open windows in the summer to avoid mosquitoes, I guess that they also have a big impact on air quality there. Thanks a lot for your support! It means a lot to us.

@pmartensen Thank you. Yes, were two and working full-time on it! I post most of the project updates on my twitter : https://x.com/alextoussss

@rwijaya thank you!

@vascoamaralgrilo

Bednets serve as a barrier against mosquitoes during sleep. Our goal is their eradication.

Your extensive arguments reduce analysis to a single metric, cost-effectiveness, to the point of being comical to the average reader. Most would happily pay $5/month to rid their city of mosquitoes instead of relying on nets. I'm not sure why you fail to see that.

@Austin Thank you for perfectly summing the issue up.

@vascoamaralgrilo I'm not sure I get the reason for your hostility. Your donation criteria is yours, and other people have different ones. If you can't see the value of entirely getting rid of mosquitoes in cities for $50/year/person, than I can't do anything for you.

@vascoamaralgrilo Bednets aren’t better, they’re in a different category. While they’re cheap, they don’t cover anything outside of bedtime. Although it’s important everyone in the poorest countries can have one, it won’t be enough to get the last 44% coverage needed, which is what we’re targeting.

About the specific figures, the 2x2m comes from the view distance of the sonar. We’re targeting the sub-250g class of drones, which have very light to no regulation around the world. Your typical football is 320 grams and goes up to 40m/s, so our drones would pack 20x less energy. I’m not concerned about city usage.

@vascoamaralgrilo

We’re not targeting the individual person market. We’re targeting communities that could cover whole cities with a few drones. Drones travel fast, so can clear of mosquitoes impressive volumes of air in a short amount of time. Our plan entire densely-populated cities mosquito-free. To give you a rough sense of the figures, a drone covering a 2x2 meters square traveling at 10m/s covers 40 cubic meters of air per second. Over a conservative 10 meters of height, that’s 4 square meters/second. For 1000 drones ($200k capital, less than the typical drone light show) you clear a square kilometer in 250 seconds. With a conservative availability factor of 1/4, you cover a square kilometer or 20k people at Paris density for a million dollars. Assuming a very conservative yearly replacement rate, that’s $50/year/person.

The figure is already good enough for the developed world, and with some economies of scale and more realistic estimations it will well be worth it for the developing world!

Please don’t hesitate if you have any other questions, I’d be happy to answer!

@Dark-shark-420 Thank you!

@Bernars Directly answering to your email

@Guyrus- Thanks a lot!

@Emile Hahaha, thank you!

@dimitris Thank you !

@Pingu2k Thank you for your help!

@guenael

We've got a 40db SNR from emitter to receiver at 1m with an integration period of 25microseconds.

We have 16 transmitters in a phased array, so with focusing gains we have SNR*16*16.

100 receivers, SNR gains in SNR*100 as noise power adds-up in N and signal power adds-up in N^2

We correlate on a 20 periods-long (17cm) window. Signal adds-up in N^2 and noise in N again.

We're really close to measuring a mosquito's sonar cross section. But, assuming wings 5mm long and 2mm wide, we can estimate it at 10e-6 m^2. A conservative assumption could be around 1e-6 m^2

From the radar range equation : ((10**(40/10))*16*16*100*20*1e-6/((4*3.14)**2))**(1/4) = 2.4 meters.

It turns out, the radar range equation being in R^(1/4) really helps. It stops growing so quickly that even big cross-section differences have a limited effect on the range. Plus, the physics of SNR are really nice with very large transmit and receiver array.

About the drone turbulence I'm not sure it would have a very significant effect in the ultrasonic band we use (40khz). It probably is more of a problem at 20khz than at 40, and there are a lot of ways we could filter it : either electronically, by looking at the spatial and time distribution of the noise, or mechanically by moving it to a region where airflow isn't that disturbed.

The main problem could be the propellers vibrations. But, because we know what the frequencies are (propeller's RPM are controlled by our flight controller) we can dynamically adapt a very narrow cut-band notch filter to ensure it doesn't make its way to our CFAR detection. Flight controllers use the same method to filter propeller noise into gyroscope reading.

Happy to answer any other questions! Invited you on LinkedIn.

@Jonas-Hyllengren Thanks a lot ! Your contribution will definitely help.

@saulmunn thanks a lot for your encouragements :-)

@saulmunn

1. Hard to be sure about it :/

2. That’s already been studied, and the general consensus seems to be that mosquitoes are a small part of the alimentation of their predators, while they cause a disproportionate amount of harm to the human population.

@davekasten We’re mainly targeting the developing world for the moment, but there’s no reason for us to restrict our reach! Thank you for your support.