TIME-SHARING COLLIMATION METHOD FOR MEASURING THE BEATING FORCE OF ANINSECT

A time-sharing collimation (TSC) method is developed to measure the be ating force of an insect. In this method, a rod with a square cross se ction is used as a sensor block to transform the force variation to ti lt angle variation, and an acousto-optic deflector is used as a diffra ctive scanner to measure these angle variations in two directions. We first calibrate the force variation with respect to the tilt angle var iation and find that the uncertainty in force measurement for the TSC system is 8.8 x 10(-4) N. We then apply the method to measure the dyna mic angle variations and the beating force of a bumblebee. (C) 1997 So ciety of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.