Following a number of different design versions I am pleased to have settled on a final version that is going forward to prototyping.

The biggest, most obvious, change is the size of the flight chamber. This is significantly reduced in cross sectional area in response to the computational fluid dynamic work that has been carried-out. The reduced area leads to a reduction of required air volume needed to generate the flow rate and means that I can use the same unit for both static air testing and dynamic wind tunnel like tests.

In the static air tests the mosquitoes are loaded as normal, as are the variables ( or variable and control). However, no air supply will be attached. Testing with no air flow will allow me to test whether the odours from the variables is enough to cause the mosquitoes to investigate them without other ‘activators’. These tests will typically run overnight, and require a slight, removable, modification to the mosquito traps to prevent exit once a ‘decision’ has been made.

The dynamic, or wind tunnel, tests are typically much quicker, and can occur in a few seconds to minutes. There are different assumptions made of these types of tests than in the static air test, as a method it is equally applicable to my study. It is my plan to use both methods in conjunction to develop as complete a representation of behaviour as possible.