A new type of dart launcher has been developed as a safer and more cost-effective alternative to firearms or air guns to inject animals with drugs or tracking chips.
A new type of dart launcher has been developed as a safer and more cost-effective alternative to firearms or air guns to inject animals with drugs or tracking chips.
Utilizing electromagnetic coils and lidar technology, the prototype was able to consistently deliver a projectile to a target with enough controlled kinetic energy to suggest that it could deliver drugs successfully without so much force as to injure animals, said John LaRocco, lead author of the study and a research scientist in psychiatry at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
Normally, if you launch a projectile without any kind of control, its initial velocity drops off because of gravity, wind resistance and other factors”, said LaRocco. “We can modulate that velocity at specific distances so it arrives with the correct amount of kinetic energy.”
Many types of dart launchers, like ones that use compressed air to operate, are used by biologists and veterinarians to aid in the capture and treatment of pets and wildlife. However, these common machines do carry a measure of risk, as coilgun syringe darts can often fail to inject a target by being too slow or cause injury or death by puncturing an animal too forcefully.
