Harmonic Radar Systems for Insect Tracking

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Insect tracking through the use of harmonic radar is a challenging engineering problem yielding previously unavailable behavioral information from insects. The urgency in understanding insects is driven by the need for greater food production while at the same time coping with invasive species enabled by climate change. Colony collapse disorder in honeybees is one very familiar crisis driving this work. Canada will benefit from tracking of the corn rootworm, Colorado potato beetle, and honeybee by protecting our agriculture industry while at the same time producing highly skilled radio engineers. Radio tracking of mammals and birds is commonplace providing a wealth of information on their movements. Insects are generally not capable of carrying conventional radio transmitters and thus an alternative tracking means is required. This is where harmonic radar plays an important role by moving the complexity and mass of the radio system to the human operator end leaving the simplest and lowest mass radio tag at the other, insect, end.