Hacker News Reader

Comment by alextousss | Hacker News Reader

My roommate and I are still working on Tornyol, our mosquito killing drone! It uses ultrasonic sonar to detect mosquitoes, and missile control theory to ram into mosquitoes and grind them in its propellers.

Our target platform is a 40 grams tinywhoop so it’s safe to fly everywhere and makes almost no noise :). A Roomba for mosquitoes!

The main plus compared to traditional systems is that a drone can cover an enormous surface in a short time compared to static systems or man-portable insecticide spraying. Our goal is to be competitive with ITNs against Malaria.

Some links :

https://hackaday.com/2025/03/25/supercon-2024-killing-mosqui...

https://manifund.org/projects/build-anti-mosqu

View on HN

Please make sure it is specific to mosquitos and does not attack other insects.

Insect populations worldwide are experiencing significant declines in both abundance and diversity, with several studies reporting reductions ranging from 40% to 75% over recent decades. Estimates suggest that 5%–10% of all insect species have disappeared in the last 150 years, and some global meta-analyses indicate terrestrial insect populations are declining by close to 9% per decade.

Don't want to underestimate how disastrous this could be for other insects. Even ignoring the impact on them, the impact on our needs to maintain pollinator populations.

From the linked Hackaday article:

> If you don’t want to kill flies, wasps, bees, or other useful pollinators while eradicating the tiny little bloodsuckers that are the drone’s target, you need to be able to not only locate bugs, but discriminate mosquitoes from the others.

> For this, he uses the micro-doppler signatures that the different wing beats of the various insects put out. Wasps have a very wide-band doppler echo – their relatively long and thin wings are moving slower at the roots than at the tips. Flies, on the other hand, have stubbier wings, and emit a tighter echo signal. The mosquito signal is even tighter.

Fascinating engineering! Doesn't seem like it would be possible but it apparently is. There's also more visuals at about 17 minutes in the video embedded in that article, the signatures seem fairly distinct.

Imagine the sound a mosquito makes when it flies near your ear; it's quite distinct. I'm sure it's possible to distinguish mosquitos based on that (which is a factor related to the doppler signature mentioned).

I wonder how distinct it is, really. It sticks out to us, but “mosquitos is enemy #1” is one of the strongest evolutionary pressure we’ve got, right? And one of the few that persists to this day.

Our brains probably have a dedicated cluster of neurons in there somewhere specifically looking for the Mosquito noise.

I mean.. if they venture into human indoors they are already doomed in the first place. Not much scope of proliferating in such an artificial environment.

Ha so cool, would love one for in my bedroom ;-)

I know of a Dutch company doing something similar. Focusses on pest detecting/mitigation in greenhouses atm: https://www.pats-drones.com/

Yeah, what they do is very cool. Not sure how far they are in the development but the videos are super cool.

Hadn't seen this before, this is awesome! I lived in Cameroon and Kenya briefly doing some consulting work and mosquitos still wreak havoc across the continent (and now living in DC I wouldn't mind having one of these in the summer for my place). I'm curious if you're also thinking about defense applications -- I would imagine that a super low cost drone that could help take out a shahed or other Russian drone that are wreaking havoc on Ukraine would be quite valuable

Glad to hear we could be of help! Some of our tech could be used for defense, but traditional defense companies and ukrainian startups already do low-cost shahed interceptors.

My impression is the solutions are still somewhat lacking/necessary -- I know Frankenburg, Eric Schmidt's stealth startup, and surely the primes are all working on it but given how many shaheds are still getting through (plus all the drone action at the frontline) I imagine there's still a market for low-cost; especially if they're largely autonomous

Just imagining how you'd test this in America. Just launch your target autonomous flying drone and then have the second one intercept it. Can you book range time at white sands?

It might be, but it’s a crowded market where politics and connections are worth more than technical expertise. So, we’re okay to stay out of it

it’s a crowded market where politics and connections are worth more than technical expertise

This is 100% true.

Kill mosquitoes first. Then go for defense contracts when you can show you have sensors good enough to hunt and kill bugs.

I guarantee solving the bug use case first will put you head and shoulders above all the clueless UAS/cUAS companies out there these days - and there are TONS of them.

A 40-gram device is unlikely to pack any punch, except against a mosquito.

It could be a great reconnaissance tool though.

Holy wow, if this works well, I’d like to order a dozen!

Very cool idea. What is your estimated price? This could work well in many African countries if the price is low.

Long term, around $300/unit

If it worked in my DC backyard, I'd pay that in a heartbeat.

Props to you for not using a UV light to attract moths and calling it a mosquito killer.

This is an interesting idea. One thing that might help targeting is to have some sort of chemical that attracts the mosquitoes. In that way you can bring your target to you.

Their velocity is much lower than the one of the drone, so it wouldn’t make much sense to increase efficiency

I seem to recall reading that mosquitos mainly seek out carbon dioxide...

I read this as well, and tried holding my breath (I can hold it for several minutes) while walking in the forest, and the mosquitoes still bit me.

Mosquitoes use different cues (olfactory, CO2 and infrared emissions/heat) depending on the distance to target.

No to discourage you ,but how do you handle a real world cluttered room where mosquito's will be able to shelter in the clutter, under table, drawers etc.

Not OP, but they have to come out to be a problem.

If they're out of sight and not bothering me, I don't really care. If they're out and possibly annoying and biting me, that's a problem.

Exactly! Plus we’ll get a nice beautiful sonar echo when they’re on walls/ceiling

mosquito generally bite you on your legs , say when you are sitting in a chair...the area under the chair is a pretty complex space to navigate for a flying bot

I watched your talk, very interesting! Super inventive idea, I hope it works out.

Is the name a word play with "torgnole" at all, or does it mean something?

Yeah, you’re spot on! The original name was « mosquitorgnole »

Very interesting idea! I wonder if a political campaign one day will be to start a program that eradicates mosquitos via drone fleets, not just in the context of malaria protection but also in just nuisance reduction. There are similar programs in place in certain metro areas that already do mosquito control (using chemicals of varying toxicity), so it's not as wild of an idea as it probably sounds.

My friend once came up with a joke idea for a solar powered ransomware drone that would fly to a random roof and jam wifi signal until someone paid it to leave.

Yeah, it’s one of our goal to work for government agencies at some point to implement city-wide mosquito control. 10 of our drones could cover a square kilometer, so we’d be a lot more efficient working at the city level rather than at the individual household level.

There are bio solutions, e.g. my city puts mosquito-larva-killing bacteria in the river and the lakes.

It works okay, but they are unable target _all_ water surface. They use drones, they give out these bacteria to people so they put it in the rainwater tanks, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis_israele...

It sounds more like a kind of biological warfare. Does this bacterium pose any harm to humans? Or is it only harmful to mosquito larvae?

I guess you already researched this topic: would laser turret work for killing mosquitos? And if no, why not? Seems more reliable.

why spend the scarce energy of the battery in addition what's already being spent spinning the propellers

I mean getting rid of drone, and having just laser turret.

Oh my bad, yeah that's a cool idea, think I've seen something along those lines once actually, think it was someone on youtube that built one

Unfortunately it won’t. an eye that collimates light is much more fragile to laser than a mosquito.

Someone had this idea, but from a static laser tower https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26376376 (343 points | 4March 2021 | 250 comments) and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28793660 (317 points | October 2021 | 161 comments). I'd be very afraid of a missed shots or reflections impacting an eye, also the fire hazard.

Ans there is also a recent post where someone use a similar device to light the mosquito https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44005200 (20 points | May 2025 | 5 comments) and you must give the final bow that sound safer. (Protip: Buy an Electric Fly Swatter)

there is a crowdfunding effort for one going on right now for such a device. I think the price is around $500. the videos are equally awesome and hilarious as they vaporize into a little puff of smoke

That will end up either dangerous or unreleased. Their system sends a 40W laser, which is what you use to cut plastics. There’s no way to make this safe as even a diffuse secondary reflection out of the field of view could blind someone.

ya, your absolutely right. still the idea of setting up an array of them around my house blasting the never ending barrage of West Nile virus attack drones as they cross the perimeter is pretty fun to think about. I suppose a well placed bat house would be just as fun to watch

Super interesting project! What stage are you at currently? What are the main open challenges that you are facing?

Everything works in simulation, and the detection works in the real world! We’re working on miniaturizing the electronics to embed it in a real drone.

Good question. How does your drone know the difference between a fly and a mosquito (and a human)?

I've watched OP's talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ScCG3qTOuc

At 17th minute he explains that they look at microdoppler signatures and can detect mosquitos through the wing flapping frequency. Pretty cool.

Super cool. I made myself laugh thinking it would ram into someone's nose while they are snoring at night.

Sounds cool but doesn't that send mosquito bits flying in all directions?

Yes, but mosquito bits are better than mosquito bytes.

You built what I ofte. imagined should exist (for flies).

Any problems with the blades getting dirty?

Not our highest priority concern haha

I imagine once everything else is tuned with your product you could make a hot-swappable blade assembly that can be quickly swapped out and later cleaned. Like if the entire guard and blade assembly came off, that would be super convenient.

Would add some weight and complexity but if it’s purpose-built it would probably be less stress on the Drone than constantly pulling props off.

Or you just use a tissue or don't clean it at all.

please make something for miggie's - there are currently no specialised products for this baddie

We could do something about it. Any flying insect is only a change of parameters for us.

Arm it with salt or sand munitions.

The missile knows where it is...

This is incredible. What is the background you needed to even have intuition on how to build something like this?

Just an insane obsession with ultrasound! (and some control theory classes)

There's an awful lot of complex navigation, signal processing and trigonometry required here, good luck.

What's the fidelity of the sonar in detection of flying mosquitoes?

What do you mean by fidelity? We’re still unsure about the tails in terms of detection probability/false detection rate

I mean the smallest possible detectable object within reasonable distance to make an intercept maneuver.

Say got example that you can only detect an average sized mosquito from a range of 1cm, then you're in random collision only territory.

How does this compare in reducing mosquito populations over something braindead like putting some yard waste and water in a bucket for a few days and either adding mosquito dunks or pouring the larvae out?

Or is this more like a stand-in for bug spray/smoke?

Duuuude! Give me this. Please. We have these mosquito bats/racquets that I've to use every day in a futile attempt to keep my family safe. I need something like what you're building. I looked up even laser mosquito killers.

Surface level thinking, ecological disaster in the making. Birds and bats and other bugs eat mosquitoes to live. Killing all the mosquitoes is like the Chinese killing all the sparrows. We do not understand, and we do not want to understand, the deep consequences of our actions.

People who think we can reengineer and shape ecology by eliminating key species are here on the dunning Kruger curve.

Better option, if you really want to fight malaria go fight that directly, leave mosquitoes out of it.

Yeah well mosquitoes should definitely be made extinct btw but there’s no way a robot that kills bugs in your back yard is going to accomplish that so you can put your pitchfork down

In general I agree that messing with ecosystems sometimes has unpredictable consequences.

In the case of mosquitos, though, they cause so much suffering, that it would be stupid to not work on eradicating them because of possible negative consequences.

We have to be careful, of course (widespread use of insecticides is a problem), but targeted measures are really unlikely to cause more harm than mosquitos already do.

Mosquitos can thrive and play their part in the food chain as much as they want.. outdoors.

What bird or bat or other bugs is getting their food needs fulfilled by hunting mosquitos inside your house?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com