Methods and apparatus for alerting and/or repelling birds and other animals
AssigneeVirginia Commonwealth University
InventorsMartin L. Lenhardt, Alfred L. Ochs
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An external stimuli is provided that alerts animals to danger and/or repels the animals from certain areas. More specifically, the system and method of the present invention uses an external stimuli, such as, for example, pulsing microwaves, vibration or supersonic sound waves, in order to alert birds or other animals of danger and/or repel these same birds or animals from specific areas. These produced external stimuli may provide a reversible unpleasant sensation to the birds and other animals so that they will not only be repelled from a specific area, such as an airport, but also will avoid returning to such area. One such unpleasant sensation that is virtually harmless to the birds and other animals is the sensation of dizziness.
Claims28
A method for alerting or repelling an animal, comprising:
- irradiating a region to be protected with a collimated amplitude modulate low frequency microwave beam with frequencies in the water heating range;
- and
- pulsing the collimated microwave beam with a temporal pattern to stimulate a vestibular system of the animal without permanently harming the animal,
- wherein the pulsed collimated microwave beam is pulsed at substantially 20 to 100 microseconds in duration and in a frequency range substantially within 0.9 to 4.0 Ghz.
A method for alerting or repelling an animal, comprising:
- propagating sound waves through a waveguide;
- and
- creating a vibration in a substrate having a frequency below 60 Hz,
- wherein the vibration is created by the propagating sound waves propagating through the waveguide to a surface of the substrate.
An apparatus for alerting or repelling animals, comprising:
- an electromechanical shaker;
- an audiofrequency circuit for driving the electromechanical shaker, the audiofrequency circuit producing pulses or tonal stimuli with vibrational spectral energy below 60 Hz;
- and
- a medium filled waveguide for propagating the vibrational spectral energy to a surface of a substrate.
A method of alerting or repelling an animal, comprising:
- projecting a supersonic audio beam at the animal so as to interact with the animal's body to produce an auditory or vestibular sensation, wherein the supersonic audio beam causes dizziness in the animal by stimulating an inner ear of the animal,
- wherein approximately 60 dB of energy of the supersonic audio beam is reflected by the body of the animal and energy above this impedance boundary is absorbed by the animal body, whereby
- a relative displacement of the brain and skull will be out of phase with movement of the middle ear bone of the animal due to its inertia, and
- each middle ear bone will be set into its natural resonance frequency at about 3.5 kHz.
A method of alerting or repelling an animal, comprising:
- projecting a supersonic audio beam at the animal so as to interact with the animal's body to produce an auditory or vestibular sensation, wherein the supersonic audio beam causes dizziness in the animal by stimulating an inner ear of the animal,
- wherein a pulse range of the supersonic audio beam is approximately 10-50 pulses per second.
A method of alerting or repelling an animal, comprising:
- projecting a supersonic audio beam at the animal so as to interact with the animal's body to produce an auditory or vestibular sensation, wherein the supersonic audio beam causes dizziness in the animal by stimulating an inner ear of the animal,
- wherein the supersonic audio beam is at least two supersonic audio beams that intersect at the animal and produce a difference tone at the animal, the difference tone falls within the animals auditory sensitivity.
An apparatus for alerting or repelling an animal, comprising:
- a plurality of oscillators for generating frequencies in the supersonic region thereby creating a supersonic audio beam in the frequency range between 11-200,000 kHz;
- a power amplifier creating pressures at the animal of approximately 140 dB ml Pa via the supersonic audio beam;
- and
- a plurality of emitter positioning devices for focusing the supersonic beam on a specific area or the animal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.