The BugHunter is a remotely piloted aerial vehicle (RPV) designed for systematic in-situ collection of insects. This instrument for unmanned airborne entomological collection was designed and built by a team of students and faculty at the University of North Dakota. The technical management team consists of faculty and graduate students in Earth Systems Science and Policy and Engineering Department’s providing guidance to a group of undergraduate students who designed and manufactured the BugHunter as part of an NSF funded program in Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU).

BugHunter enables systematic collecting of insects over inaccessible terrain, forest canopies and at altitudes of up to 3,000 feet. The collecting modules can be opened and closed at specific locations for precision acquisition of faunal samples. The onboard global positioning system (GPS) provides precision geographic location of collecting sites for use with existing geographic information system (GIS) data. BugHunter was designed as part of a versatile airborne platform for multidisciplinary, experiential education in engineering and remote sensing but it has become an innovative device for precision aerial insect collection.