Could a superhetrodyne hi freq audio device be made to produce a human hearable sound to make detection easier/reliable.

 

Can you elaborate?
What are you trying to do?

 

Dogs can be trained to hear and respond to white ant noises, a battery powered ultra sonic detector is prob not expensive nor difficult to build. White ants are a serious problem here, and pest inspectors are unreliable and take no responsibility for any outcome. I thought a reliable device would give confidence, and could be mass marketed.

 

Dogs can be trained to hear and respond to white ant noises, a battery powered ultra sonic detector is prob not expensive nor difficult to build. White ants are a serious problem here, and pest inspectors are unreliable and take no responsibility for any outcome. I thought a reliable device would give confidence, and could be mass marketed.

Why do you think white ant noise can be distinguished from other ultrasonic noise?

 

I don't have any info on background levels, but I know dogs are trained, so that suggests the sound is identifyable.

 

I don't have any info on background levels, but I know dogs are trained, so that suggests the sound is identifyable.

Sounds to me like a project where 99% of the effort will need to go into writing code in a microcontroller to do DSP and analysis, discriminating the ants from other noises. The fact that dogs can be trained to do it suggests that it's possible, not that it's easy.

The amount of processing our brains do in order to make sense of what we hear with our ears is staggering. Presumably it's the same with dogs. Getting a computer to do that same processing, while probably possible, will not be easy or straightforward... especially if you don't already have baseline data to work from, like ultrasonic recordings of the ants.

 

thx for ur assessment, I wasn't thinking it was so difficult.

 

How loud are they? Can you restrict their path of intrusion?

How about a moat...can they swim?

Where do you live? Have not had the pleasure of a white ant.

 

thx for ur assessment, I wasn't thinking it was so difficult.

Well, it may not be - I'm no expert on white ant sound signatures. It's possible that there would be something really unusual about their sound that makes them especially easy to identify with simple analog filters.

However, generally speaking, things that seem simple to us, like recognizing a human voice in the midst of dense background noise, or identifying one voice from another, require sophisticated algorithms. There's probably open source software you can use to do a lot of the grunt work, recognizing envelope patterns or capturing FFT shapes, etc, but you'll still need to code what to look for and how to define a match.

Here's an audio recognition service talking about their tech:

https://www.audioanalytic.com/technology/

 

Hello,

If you want to "shift" the frequency into audible range, you could have a look at frequency shifter or ring modulator schematics.
On this page there are a couple used in musical instruments:
http://experimentalistsanonymous.co...matics/Ring Modulators and Frequency Shifters

Bertus

 

I came to think of something like a bat detector, to shift the frequency down to a human audible signal.

 

Looks like someone else had the same idea:

https://newatlas.com/wispr-acoustic-termite-detector/21128/

It would be interesting to see how they're doing a few years after that article came out, and how their product works.

 

Hello,

A Bat detector uses either a divider or a mixer.
There are many circuits on the internet for them:
bat detector schematic

Bertus

 

TS is going to have to find a transducer sensitive enough to pick up the sound of an ant. Then come up with a circuit that can discriminate from ambient "noise". This is a lot more complex than a bat detector. I don't see how this project could be in reach of the typical hobbyist.

 

Dogs can be trained to hear and respond to white ant noises,

Are you sure that is how the dogs detect termites? I think you have it wrong, they detect the smell of them, like they do bombs and explosives.

 

Spectral analysis of an image, like use a Raspberry Pi and a WebCam, and
image recognition of the ant.

Or a trap where ants are looked at with color sensor as they march by ?


Regards, Dana.

 

Spectral analysis of an image, like use a Raspberry Pi and a WebCam, and
image recognition of the ant.

Or a trap where ants are looked at with color sensor as they march by ?


Regards, Dana.

How would that work? You need to be able to get the webcam where the ants are. If the webcam can see the ants then the humans probably will too. And I doubt the TS would want black ants on the property but not white ants. In other words TS just wants to detect ants period. In the TS's region the most prolific are white ants.

The only way I see this working is to plant sensors all around the yard that would detect ant pheromones. Ants will leave a trail of pheromones to communicate. This is what the dog detects. Not their sound. Find the pheromone trails and you find your ants.

 

How would that work? You need to be able to get the webcam where the ants are. If the webcam can see the ants then the humans probably will too. And I doubt the TS would want black ants on the property but not white ants. In other words TS just wants to detect ants period. In the TS's region the most prolific are white ants.

The only way I see this working is to plant sensors all around the yard that would detect ant pheromones. Ants will leave a trail of pheromones to communicate. This is what the dog detects. Not their sound. Find the pheromone trails and you find your ants.

I think "white ants" is another name for termites. So, it's detection of them within structures in particular that would be useful.

 

I think "white ants" is another name for termites. So, it's detection of them within structures in particular that would be useful.

You would still have to have a large number of webcams planted at all of the critical structural members of the ground level of the house. Even then there is no guarantee the the webcam is going to positioned as such as it will see the termites. Termites also excrete pheromones. The only affordable and reliable why to detect them is through sensors. Of course the research part will break the bank but at least you could affords the equipment.

And if you decieded to use webcams, you would not need to bother with detecting the color of the insects. Just look for insects.

 

Termites also excrete pheromones.

This is why the dogs can detect them. And anteaters, they don't mess with a termite mound that isn't active and producing the right smell. They pass dead mounds by after a few sniffs. Don't know why they call them anteaters when they eat termites. Must be the 'white ant' thing.