Flight Analysis with High Speed Cameras

Janelia Farm group leader Anthony Leonardo employs a pair of high-speed cameras to learn about dragonfly prey capture. The cameras simultaneously record a dragonfly’s foraging flights in an indoor flight arena. The insects’ flight trajectories are then reconstructed and analyzed by associating pixel addresses of the cameras’ two-dimensional light sensors with locations in the three-dimensional arena. A second larger set of cameras mounted around the periphery of the flight arena captures finer body motions from hunting dragonflies. To facilitate this visualization, sesame seed-sized reflective balls are glued to the insects’ heads, body, and wings.

Leonardo’s indoor flight arena contains high speed cameras that record dragonflies as they hunt.
Erik Johnson

Tiny reflective beads are attached to a dragonfly’s head and wings to capture the essence of its movements as it hunts.
Anthony Leonardo / Janelia Farm Research Campus