A 40-gram drone that hunts insects logs its first mid-air kill

Tornyol Systems showed a mosquito-hunting micro-drone making its first air-to-air kill — of a moth — as it aims at disease-vector control.

Tornyol Systems has built an autonomous micro-drone, weighing 40 grams, designed to locate and kill mosquitoes. Around 14 July 2026 the company, co-founded by Alex Toussaint, shared video of the drone's first confirmed air-to-air kill. The target was a moth, not yet a mosquito — an important distinction the company itself notes.

The sensing setup is unusual. A base station called LeSonar2 uses a phased array of 380 smartphone microphones and an Artix-7 FPGA to build a 3D map, detecting movements as small as 0.1 mm and identifying mosquitoes by their wingbeat signature. The drone, commanded by a PC and using car park assist sensors, can target insects up to 8 meters away. U.S. residents can reserve a unit with a refundable $100 deposit, then choose a $50-per-month subscription or a $1,100 one-time purchase.

The health case rests on scale. Tornyol cites that mosquitoes kill more than 700,000 people a year and that over 700 million contract mosquito-borne disease annually. A cheap, autonomous way to cut vector populations could reach health outcomes that pesticides and nets do not — if it works outside a lab.

That 'if' is large. The eradication ambition is a stated goal, not a demonstrated result; the disease figures come from the company's own mission statement; and the first verified kill was a moth. Tornyol says it plans to roll out deployment on embedded hardware within weeks, which is the next milestone worth watching.

Source: Tom's Hardware