Smart city for bees: University of Graz develops high-tech beehive
Animals and robots can already communicate very well. The team around Thomas Schmickl, Professor of Zoology at the University of Graz and head of the Artificial Live Lab, has caused a worldwide sensation with this pioneer project.
In a recent experiment, bees and zebrafish were able to communicate successfully with each other via robots, even over the hundreds of kilometres between Graz and Lausanne.
Now the scientists want to integrate their technology into the beehive. “Our goal is to provide insects with technologies that help them react in time to changes in the environment”, explains Schmickl.
Currently, the habitats of honeybees are severely threatened, leading to massive death and serious disruption of entire ecosystems.
Sensors will be used to regulate the temperature in the honeycomb and thus optimise conditions for rearing the offspring. Digital maps will provide information on pesticides in potential food sources and send a warning to the hive. Robots will imitate the bee dance – which, incidentally, was deciphered by Nobel Prize winner Karl von Frisch at the University of Graz – in order to give information to the bee colony.
“We want to influence the direction in which the insects make their pollination flights”, Schmickl explains. They have already investigated the possibilities of swarm control in a previous large-scale project called ASSISI.
The HIVEOPOLIS – i.e. “bee city” – project is running until 2024 in cooperation with five partner universities – École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Freie Universität Brüssel, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Lettland Landwirtschaftliche Universität, and the Bulgarian company Bee Smart Technologies OOD.
Interest groups such as beekeepers, farmers, programmers, environmentalists and educators will be involved in the research and be able to contribute to the development of a smart hive.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmickl
Institute of Biology
University of Graz
Phone (+43) 316 380-8759
E-mail: thomas.schmickl@uni-graz.at
Media Contact
More Information:
https://www.uni-graz.atAll latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry
Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.
Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.
Newest articles
First-of-its-kind study uses remote sensing to monitor plastic debris in rivers and lakes
Remote sensing creates a cost-effective solution to monitoring plastic pollution. A first-of-its-kind study from researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how remote sensing can help monitor and…
Laser-based artificial neuron mimics nerve cell functions at lightning speed
With a processing speed a billion times faster than nature, chip-based laser neuron could help advance AI tasks such as pattern recognition and sequence prediction. Researchers have developed a laser-based…
Optimising the processing of plastic waste
Just one look in the yellow bin reveals a colourful jumble of different types of plastic. However, the purer and more uniform plastic waste is, the easier it is to…