Super Resolution Laser Radar with Blinking Atmospheric Particles - Application to Interacting Flying Insects

Assessment of biodiversity of pollinators on the landscape scale or estimation of fluxes of disease-transmitting biting midges constitutes a major technical challenge today. We have developed a laser-radar system for field entomology based on the so called Scheimpflug principle and a continuouswave laser. The sample-rate of this method is unconstrained by the round-trip time of the light, and the method allows assessment of the fast oscillatory insect wing-beats and harmonics over kilometers range, e.g., for species identification and relating abundances to the topography. Whereas range resolution in conventional lidars is limited by the pulse duration, systems of the Scheimpflug type are limited by the diffraction of the telescopes. However, in the case of sparse occurrence of the atmospheric insects, where the optical cross-section oscillates, estimation of the range and spacing between individuals with a precision beyond the diffraction limit is now demonstrated. This enables studies of insect interaction processes in-situ.