In a story that sounds a lot like the beginning of a sci-fi movie, Alex Toussaint – co-founder of Tornyol – has announced the first success of his micro-drone which uses sonar to track mosquitoes – before killing them.
I'm the drone expert here, and I've got to say I'm intrigued, excited, and a little worried about this. Then again, I really hate bug spray so I'll take a look!
Mosquitos are the enemy, the company's mission statement confirms: "One of humanity's oldest and worst enemies. They kill more than 700,000 people each year — more than all current wars."
Extremely excited to announce our first air-to-air kill of a flying moth by an autonomous micro-drone. This is a big step towards completely eradicating mosquitoes. pic.twitter.com/UhtNqwXCQIJuly 14, 2026
By listening to the unique sound that mosquitoes make, the drone is designed to follow them and simply chop them up with the propeller blades.
The insect is so small, presumably, that this won't affect the flight characteristics, though it's definitely worth noting that a drone this size – it weighs 40g / 1.4oz according to the company – won't have much more than 6 minutes in the air.
The sonar is not as sophisticated as the camera you'd usually find on many drones, but it is built for one purpose.
The concept is one that Alex Toussaint, who created the Tornyol, discussed publicly back at the 2024 Superconference, an event for hackers.
There, he explained how any drone's fast-turning propellers could chop up a mosquito, but a human pilot would be unlikely to have the precision to track the insect.
Add in some off-the-shelf (to electronics enthusiasts, at least) components and Toussaint found that some tiny microphones could pick up the sonar return as well as the human range they were built for, so he just needed to get to work on the software.
The core element is the same component as you'd find used as a reversing sensor on many vehicles. The other sensor available to the drone's AI is a microphone to pick up the mosquito's sound and position it using the Doppler effect.
These have been upgraded to a base station with LeSonar2 phased array sonar, 380 smartphone microphones and a Artix-7 FPGA to map the world in 3D. The drone, then, isn't working entirely alone, but receiving advice from a computer
This gives it the ability to track 0.1mm movements in a range of 26ft (8m) – very precise indeed!
Unbelievably for a company that has recorded its first air-to-air kill, it is planning on rolling it out for U.S.-based customers "in the next few weeks," though at the moment a deposit of $100 and either a payment plan or a $1,100 final price are possibly as off-putting as that vagueness.
On the plus side, it seems very unlikely that this tech will successfully achieve the eradication of an entire species anytime soon, which is good because there would undoubtedly be unforeseen effects.
For one thing, mosquito larvae consume organic matter in water, and might actually help clean some lakes and water near the places the flying insects are most known for spreading disease. Species which eat them, like the mosquitofish, and some migratory birds, could see serious population falls too.
