BLACK SOLDIER FLY
Updated: Sep 29
Biology × Engineering × Education
BIOLOGY · SENSORICS · IoT · CONTROL SYSTEMS · EDUCATION · PROGRAMMING ·
LEARNING PLATFORM (MOODLE)
PRODUCT What is RENUBOX Hermetia?
RENUBOX Hermetia is a controllable breeding and experimental environment for the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens). It combines biological living conditions with sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, control engineering, and digital data acquisition. This allows biological relationships to not only be observed but also technically measured and specifically modified.
The box is suitable for interdisciplinary, problem-oriented teaching and offers users a basis for industry-ready development work.
Insect farming is coming of age: Why control over the life cycle is crucial
Insects are gaining importance as a sustainable protein source in Europe. The Black Soldier Fly utilizes organic waste to produce protein, fat, and fertilizer for animal feed, aquaculture, and pet food. Demand is rising, and regulation and the circular economy are further advancing this topic.
At the same time, the recent consolidation of the industry shows that success depends not on ever-larger facilities, but on stable, economically viable processes. One of the biggest weaknesses is the breeding process itself. Hatching, pupation, mating, and egg-laying are sensitive to temperature, humidity, and light. Fluctuations lead to losses and unpredictable yields.
This is precisely where RENUBOX Hermetia comes in. The box accompanies the fly through all life phases, creating the appropriate environmental conditions for each phase and allowing for targeted adjustments. This makes breeding processes reproducible and predictable, with manageable investment costs.
This is interesting for several markets:
Breeding farms and start-ups that want to reliably produce eggs and parent animals
Operators of small, decentralized plants, for example at waste producers
Research and education that require standardized conditions
Insect farming is becoming more professional. RENUBOX Hermetia provides the foundation for this: control over the life cycle.
QUESTION What problem does the box solve?
Can the environmental conditions relevant to the life cycle of the Black Soldier Fly be controlled, modified, and measured? RENUBOX Hermetia answers this question with a technical environment specifically designed for this purpose. This encompasses several tasks: determining optimal biological environmental parameters, deriving technical parameters from them, implementing control and regulation, and ensuring stable operation across multiple life cycles.
The box accelerates innovation cycles. The insects are monitored, and the collected data can be used for research and further development.
OBSERVATION What matters?
Biological systems respond to many interconnected environmental conditions. In the case of the Black Soldier Fly, these include temperature, humidity, light, and food availability. Furthermore, the requirements change with the developmental stages.
This is a systemic problem: How do you technically model a biological system without reducing it to a single variable? RENUBOX Hermetia works with target ranges for larvae and adult animals, as well as with specifications for humidity and lighting derived from scientific literature.
DATA What is being measured?
RENUBOX Hermetia is equipped with sensors and technical control loops. It measures parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, CO₂ concentration, and light conditions. The sensor data is stored digitally, and parameters can be accessed and adjusted via the internet.
DATA AVAILABILITY - LIMITED DATA
Extensive measurement series, technical parameters, and evaluations are available from development and testing. On the Renution website, we only show a selection relevant to understanding the research case. Further information is available upon request.
HYPOTHESIS - What is the basic idea?
Once the crucial biological environmental conditions are identified and translated into technical parameters, they can be specifically replicated and modified using sensors, actuators, and control loops. A biological habitat thus becomes a controllable environment: kept stable yet simultaneously modifiable, allowing the effects of altered conditions to be observed and measured.
EXPERIMENT - How does the box work?
The system connects:
Sensors → Microcontrollers → Data → Control → Actuators → Biological environment.
Integrated systems include those for humidity, temperature, CO₂ or fresh air supply and lighting.
To ensure safety, functional tests without larvae were conducted before use with animals. These tests verified the communication between the sensors and the microcontroller, as well as the measured values against references. Tests with insects followed.
RESULT - What can the box do?
RENUBOX Hermetia creates a stable, controlled environment for the Black Soldier Fly. Conditions can be technically regulated and modified. Sensor data is available digitally and via the internet, allowing for adjustment of individual parameters. The system enables multiple generations of the insects and meets the defined requirements for use in educational settings.
APPLICATION What is the box used for?
RENUBOX Hermetia transforms a biological life cycle into a technically accessible environment.
Education: Students work with sensors, actuators and microcontrollers, develop their own questions, change environmental parameters and observe the effects on a real biological system.
Small breeding farms: Breeding processes become reproducible and predictable.
Research: Standardized conditions provide comparable data.
The box combines biology, technology, computer science and problem-oriented learning in one system.
KNOWLEDGE What's behind it?
The fly isn't the real story. RENUBOX Hermetia shows how requirements from one domain, biology, can be translated into another, technology. From:
Temperature . humidity . light . life cycle . sensors . setpoints . control loops . actuators . data
And this creates an environment in which the original biological system can be specifically studied.
Perhaps the next problem begins with a question.
Not every problem is fully described yet, and not every issue has an obvious solution.
If you are facing a technical or systemic challenge where this is the case, it could be an interesting starting point.
