UW Engineers Develop Sensor Networks That Are Carried By Bees

SEATTLE — A team of engineers at the University of Washington have developed a way to obtain farming data by using any farms best friend: bees. By attaching to bumble bees a tiny but complex sensor network the UW engineers found a way to monitor and collect a variety of important farming data, such as plant health and measurements for humidity, light, and temperature, as well as study bee behavior.

Using rechargeable batteries and backscatter communication technology, to download daily all collected data, the researchers can capture more reliable information over longer periods of time than if they attempted the same data collection using robotic drones.

According to the UW engineers, many farmers already rely on bee colonies to perform important pollination work. So giving the bees backpacks really just increases their usefulness around agricultural properties.

In their research document published online this week, Vikram Iyer, Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, Anran Wang, Sawyer B. Fuller, and Shyamnath Gollakota explain the complicated process of miniaturizing the sensor so a bumble bee could still carry it while also making it capable of containing enough data to be useful.

Another challenge was developing a micro-sized rechargeable battery that could survive the entire time a bee spends foraging — roughly seven hours, they said.

Altogether, the sensor network fits on the face of a penny.

Unsurprisingly, the engineers faced numerous technological challenges to make this sensor network possible, and they've considered possible issues that may arise from attaching a nonbiological piece of equipment to an insect, such as what becomes of the sensor when the bee hibernates for the season or reaches its lifespan.

To read the complete study, visit LivingIoT.cs.Washington.edu.

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Image via Mark Stone, used with permission from the University of Washington