'Smellicopter' Obstacle-Avoiding Drone Uses Live Moth Antenna

A team led by the University of Washington  introduces their "Smellicopter" autonomous drone, which uses a live antenna from a moth to navigate toward a smell. Smellicopter can also sense and avoid obstacles as it travels, and is programmed to move upwind, tracking odors to their source. The drone has two plastic fins on the back to create drag to help it be oriented so that it is constantly facing upwind. In the future, a Smellicopter could be used to detect hidden explosives, gas leaks, or for environmental monitoring and to look at agricultural crops. The team used antennae from the Manduca sexta hawkmoth, and in adding tiny wires into either end of the antenna, were able to connect it to an electrical circuit and record its responses. “By using an actual moth antenna with Smellicopter, we’re able to get the best of both worlds: the sensitivity of a biological organism on a robotic platform where we can control its motion," says lead author Melanie Anderson, a doctoral student of mechanical engineering.

Transcript

00:00:03 Yeah we do call it the Smellicopter, yep. My name is Melanie Anderson. I'm a PhD student in mechanical engineering. I work on the Smellicopter. So the Smellicopter can do two things - it can smell odors and follow those to the source  but it can also avoid obstacles while doing that.   The main thing is the antenna right here. This is an antenna from a live moth -    the smelling organism of the moth - and it  serves as the odor sensor for the drone. The antennas is kind of like a tube so what  we're able to do is take really thin metal wires and stick those into the ends of the  antenna. So this has some floral scent.

00:00:53 When the antenna gets activated from odors then you're  able to measure that electrical signal as a spike. So the Smellicopter when it smells odor, then  it travels upwind and when it loses the odor   then it casts crosswind until it picks  up the odor again. We weren't really sure if that was ever going to work, so the first time it worked it was really amazing (laughs) In the future this drone could be used for  finding gas leaks and buildings or finding   unexploded IEDs. So you could send out a bunch  of drones and not have to endanger any human lives. Being able to locate the source of  an odor is a huge field, so by taking   basically the best - by using the moth antenna - which  is super fast, low powered, highly sensitive even if that's not the long-term goal, it's something  that man-made sensors actually can't do.