Acoustic Levitation Gets Insects Ready For Their Close-Up
1 min read
Summary
A paper titled Automated Photogrammetric Close-Range Imaging System for Small Invertebrates uses acoustic levitation to image insects in a weightless environment.
By using ultrasonic transducers to create a spherical area in which an insect can be levitating in the centre, it can be perfectly lit and rotated for 3D scanning with a single camera, eliminating background concerns.
The device contains a spherical chamber with a radius of 60 mm with 96 Murata MA40S4R/S transducers operating at 40kHz controlled by a FPGA rather than an Arduino Mega as initially attempted.
The paper lacks detail on the exact construction of the device, but for those interested in acoustic levitation, Asier Marzo gave a talk on the subject at Hackaday Belgrade in 2018.
