Mini helicopter masters insect navigation trick

[soulxtc]

A miniature robotic helicopter has revealed a simple yet effective visual trick that lets insects fly so adeptly without sophisticated avionics.
Besides explaining how insects zoom around and land without crashing into the ground, the technique could potentially be used to help control aircraft.
As insects fly forwards the ground beneath them sweeps backwards through their field of view.



This "optical flow" is thought to provide crucial cues about speed and height. For example, the higher an insect's altitude, the slower the optical flow; the faster it flies, the faster the optical flow.

http://www.newscientisttech.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11152/dn11152-1_250.jpg (http://www.newscientisttech.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11152/dn11152-1_711.jpg)

Previous experiments involving bees suggest that optical flow is crucial to landing. Maintaining a constant optical flow while descending should provide a constant height-to-groundspeed ratio, which makes a bee slowdown as it approaches the ground. Distorting this optical flow can cause them to crash land instead.



http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn11152-mini-helicopter-masters-insect-navigation-trick.html

[soulxtc]

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[Howzat]

Weird, the exact same technology is being developed in Australia with big backing from the government and US military. It was on a weekly science show here last week. Wonder if these two teams are competing or working with each other.

[jacksensei]

I can just imagine it:

"at 0200 hours the army of automated heli-bots expected to quell the insurgency in Tikrit diverted themselves unexpectedly to a flower patch. Several lives were lost trying to reclaim the weapons, bent on collecting pollen. 6 hours later the heli-bots, loaded with pollen, attempted to return from Iraq to the Sacramento labratories where they were first engineered. Battery failure resulted in their disappearence over the Mediterranian. Engineers are trying to figure out what went wrong."

[barrakuda]

It's interestig atleast, and hey It might lead to bigger developments in the future, who knows.

[adirael]

well in my university only has a simulation ...jejeje great

[queekus]

That looks really cool!