Application and Modeling of a Tick-Killing Robot, TickBot

Abstract

Ticks are vectors of disease-causing pathogens that affect humans, wildlife, and domestic animals. Effective control measures are needed to reduce the risk of encountering ticks, and thus reduce risk of tick-borne disease. To control ticks, a variety of methods have been used including the recent invention called the TickBot, a tick-killing robot. TickBot lures ticks, using movement and carbon dioxide, to a permethrin treated cloth as it traverses a predetermined perimeter. Previous studies have shown TickBot’s ability to protect a treated area from tick encounters for approximately 24 h. Mathematical models can be used to explore tick population dynamics, quantify risk of tick-borne disease, and identify strategies to reduce that risk. Using data from field studies, an agent based model was developed to explore ideal usage of the TickBot as a tick management tool. Results support the use of scenarios with carbon-dioxide for greater reduction in questing tick populations. The best treatment scenario was running the TickBot three times a week with carbon dioxide. Also percent reduction of ticks is not linear to application frequency suggesting that more treatment days does not have a greater effect. More field research is needed to better parameterize models in the future to describe tick management dynamics.