Biotracks video transcript

Tonya Lander, Entomologist:
I think the Biotracks technology is full of potential.

[Text on screen: 85% of plant species are insect pollinated. 40% of insect species are at risk of extinction.]

Tonya:
And that means if they don't receive pollination, they'll set fewer or possibly no seeds, which means no fruit for us to eat, but also no reproduction of those plants for the next generation.

The loss of insects has all kinds of impacts and many, many more species are in decline.

[Text on screen: We urgently need to: locate nests; monitor behaviour; follow local movement; track swarm migration.]

Tonya:
Biotracks will change our understanding of insect use of landscapes at the large spatial scale.

[Text on screen: But how do you track a bee?]

[Text on screen: The team: Chris Stevens, Engineer; Tonya Lander, Entomologist; Tom Willcock, Drone Pilot; Aldo Vargas, Robotics.]

Chris Stevens, Engineering:
So for many years, tracking small insects was a radar engineer's extreme sport because it was so difficult. Biotracks have been able to make it a working technology, a real technology that we can use today.

Tonya:
This project, this technology has changed the way that I look at my biological research and also changed my understanding of all the engineering applications that I see around me all the time.

Chris:
Most of the time you can't see insects. They're little things and once they've gone a few metres, they're out of your site. You don't know what they're doing.

The benefit of this technology is that you can extend that range from the few metres that you can see to potentially an entire field, an entire crop area. 

We have a radar system where we attach a very small circuit, which converts radar signals to a higher frequency, which we can then pick up with a very sensitive receiver, which illuminates the bee, then pings back a higher frequency signal, which we can locate with another radio receiver.

And the second system we've got is essentially an optical system. It's very similar to the reflector that you've got on the back of the bicycle, for instance. 

Tonya:
So we have a camera that can only see at 940 nanometres. We have a ring of LEDs that are producing 940 nanometres around the camera lens. And those lights shine downwards, reflect off of the tag on the bee, and then the tag reflects backwards to the camera.

And so what the camera sees is essentially a bright dark in a dark grey landscape. Harmonic radar we didn't invent, but these tags that can be carried by a bee, we did.

[Text on screen: This is revolutionary: small; battery-less; super lightweight; non-inhibitive; transportable; real-time tracking]

Tonya:
The tags are the smallest and lightest harmonic radar chips ever made.

And so to have the transmitter and the receiver and the drone and the camera and the tags all working at the same time - and we took it outdoors and it still worked - that was a wonderful moment. 

We don't know yet the ways in which it might be used but I think once we move it out into the public arena, other people will think of exciting new applications...

[Text on screen: Detecting landmines; Tracking space debris] 

and I'm excited to see that.