This Mosquito ‘LiDAR’ Has Raised Over $1 Million

We might not have flying cars, robot butlers or Star Trek-style food replicators, but the future does have lasers – and they’re now being aimed at mosquitoes. Enter the Photon Matrix, a crowdfunded device currently on Indiegogo that promises to track and obliterate the world’s most annoying insects with the precision of a high-tech missile system.

Designed in China, the Photon Matrix can reportedly detect a mosquito and calculate its distance, orientation and body size in just 3 milliseconds. The secret sauce is LiDAR – light detection and ranging – the same tech used in self-driving cars. By firing out laser pulses and timing how long they take to bounce back, the device maps its surroundings in microseconds. When it detects a mosquito buzzing by, a second laser instantly zaps it out of existence.

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There are limits. Mosquitoes moving faster than 1 metre per second escape detection, so this won’t double as a fly-killing machine. Still, both the Basic Edition (90-degree, 3-metre range) and the Pro Version (up to 6 metres) promise the power to dispatch as many as 30 mosquitoes per second – even in pitch-black bedrooms.

Safety-wise, the Photon Matrix adds millimetre-wave radar to make sure it doesn’t fire at people or pets in its field of view. It runs on mains power or an optional rechargeable pack that lasts between 8 and 16 hours, depending on the model.

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If this all sounds like sci-fi déjà vu, that’s because it is. The concept of a laser mosquito defence system first surfaced in 2007 when astrophysicist Lowell Wood – one of the brains behind Reagan’s Star Wars missile defence programme – suggested scaling the tech down for mosquito control at a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation session on malaria. Prototypes followed, built from parts of mobile phones and laser printers, with Intellectual Ventures even patenting one. But by 2017, after a flashy TED demo, the tech was still unsafe for human eyes.

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Image courtesy of indiegogo.com

The Photon Matrix team insists things have moved on. They claim the product incorporates “mandatory safety certification requirements into its design,” although it’s unclear whether those standards are international or strictly local. The project is led by Jim Wong of Changzhou, whose Indiegogo profile lists this as his first venture – reason enough for cautious optimism rather than blind faith.

Backing the prototype will cost $468 for the Basic Edition or $629 for the Pro, with retail prices expected to climb to $697 and $897. If you want something available right now, the $339 Bzigo Iris offers laser tracking, though it only highlights mosquitoes for swatting rather than frying them.

The Photon Matrix might not deliver the sci-fi future of robot butlers, but it could make summer nights a lot less itchy.