Don't be fooled by their tiny size or the fact that you can crush one with your hand. Mosquitos are murderers, killing, by some estimates , more than a million people each year by spreading terrible diseases.

Maker Ildar Rakhmatulin is all too familiar with these killer bugs and decided to do something about it with the help of a Raspberry Pi and a deadly laser. The project relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify and track mosquitoes in real-time. A galvanometer is used to orient the laser before zapping the unsuspecting target. The AI network was trained using a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GPU and Ryzen 5 3600 CPU

To research and develop this project, Rakhmatulin relied on the help of a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. A simple Raspberry Pi Camera module was used to monitor visually for potential mosquitos.

Once a mosquito has been identified, the Pi sends a command to the galvanometer to adjust the mirrors and target the mosquito. Once it's in position, the laser is powered, delivering a devastating blast to the insect. It then does a follow-up sweep to make sure the mosquito threat is completely terminated.

Would this work in the real world? There's an interesting discussion on Hacker News , where this was first shared, about whether a 1W laser would be safe if a human was exposed to it. Also, the article claims that the mosquitos were only 300mm away from the laser, which is not exactly far. And this is a pre-printed article with no video showing it in action.

If you want to read about this project in detail, visit the project page on PrePrints . Check out our list of best Raspberry Pi Projects for more cool creations from the maker community.