Hornet biological radar for detection, tracking, direction finding, and long distance communication: Is this possible?

摘要

The late, great entomologist, Prof. Jacob S. Ishay, from the faculty of medicine in Tel-Aviv University, dedicated his life to hornet research. He found that the hornet's body produces a considerable amount of electrical energy by means of photovoltaic and piezoelectric effects. Using an electronic microscope, Prof. Ishay showed to the authors the existence of two-dimensional arrays of very short spikes on the body skin of hornets, not unlike antenna arrays for radar and wireless communication systems. Later, Prof. Ishay and his team also found that the hornet's two antennas produce electricity and include spikes. These three radiation sources enable direction finding - even at great distances - from cooperative targets by wireless communication, allowing a new hypothesis of triangulation and an inverse GPS property for hornets. In this paper, a hypothetical biological radar for hornets is presented. In particular, we present a hypothesis regarding short spikes that may act as three phased arrays with extremely short monopole antenna elements. Due to their tiny physical dimensions, the frequency range of the antennas was estimated to be beyond 250 GHz, in the THz band. A comparison with other biological radar and direction-finding wireless communication systems is also provided.