Time-sharing collimation method for measuring the beating force of an insect

A time-sharing collimation (TSC) method is developed to measure the beating force of an insect. In this method, a rod with a square cross section is used as a sensor block to transform the force variation to tilt angle variation, and an acousto-optic deflector is used as a diffractive scanner to measure these angle variations in two directions. We first calibrate the force variation with respect to the tilt angle variation and find that the uncertainty in force measurement for the TSC system is 8.8 x 10(-4) N. We then apply the method to measure the dynamic angle variations and the beating force of a bumblebee. (C) 1997 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.