Bug Track:
Tracking insects
with the Sheffield
Machine Learning
group

Over the last 10 years we have been developing technology to track insects at multiple scales. Get in touch if you’re interested in collaborating!

Landscape-scale

Tracking central place foragers over 100s of metres, the novel BLE tracking system can be deployed in a range of landscapes.

This system has a precision of +/-10m. Over 2026 we will be testing a new microbattery developed at Sheffield, to extend the tracking period.

We are also augmenting the path inference with sensors to learn more about Bumblebee behaviour.

Email: CJNoroozi1@sheffield.ac.uk

Meso-scale

Track insects over 20m: By tagging insects with retroreflective tags, we can resolve their flight in 3d with a precision of a few mm.

We are currently exploring how we can uniquely identify each insect.

Email: m.t.smith@sheffield.ac.uk

Lab-scale

For the highest accuracy, we use multi-camera 3d tracking in the lab.