Beetlecam
To see first-hand the daily life of the insects, the scientists built a small camera that they can mount on a beetle with a Lilliputian backpack.
The Beetlecam (our name, not yours) comes from the University of Washington’s computer science department, which was commissioned to design a camera light enough not to interrupt the daily routine of an error, but powerful enough to transmit Live images to a smartphone. The result, Gizmodo Reports is a small robotic platform that provides real-time access to an insect’s world view.
Packing light
The main challenge the team had to overcome was to build a chamber small enough to be transported by the feigned Death Beetles and Pinacate, which Gizmodo Reports are known for taking things up steep slopes and making the camera powerful enough to be worth using in the first place.
Even a smartphone’s built-in camera would be too heavy, so the scientists drew inspiration from the bugs themselves, according to research published in the journal Wednesday. Robotic Science. Like the compound eyes of a fly, the Beetlecam has a wide field of view but only a small range in which the image is particularly sharp.
First glance
The resulting footage is as good as you’d expect from a beetle-friendly backpack. Gizmodo reports that black and white sequences flow between one and five frames per second.
Looking ahead, Gizmodo reports that researchers may one day completely eliminate the Beetlecam beetle part, with bug-sized surveillance robots. It goes without saying that we prefer to spy on mistakes.
READ MORE: The researchers created small camera backpacks for beetles[[[[Gizmodo]
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