Insect-Like Brain Flies Onboard Micro-Helicopter
Lessons learned over 30 years of
research into the minds of insects may soon bear fruit in the
increasingly complex field of unmanned aerial vehicles, if Nicolas
Franceschini has anything to say about it.
Franceschini, a neurophysiologist and engineer at France’s
National Center for Scientific Research and at the University of
the Mediterranean, told LiveScience.com scientists could learn much
from studying the smallest flying creatures.
"It's extraordinary to see flies navigate with just their small
10-milligram brains," said Franceschini. "They can do a lot with so
little."
Scientists have adapted a miniature helicopter with an
electronic brain that simulates the way insects view flight --
which could just lead to better flight characteristics for unmanned
aircraft.
Insects use the changing view of the ground, called "optic
flow," to measure their height and speed. Insect brains aren't very
complex... so Franceschini says bugs use these two measurements to
gauge their relationship with the sky. In short, if a bug speeds
up, it climbs... and if it slows down, it descends.
"They don't need a speedometer or altimeter. They just need to
use their eyes," said Franceschini. "Each compound eye of a
housefly only can see 3,000 pixels, nothing like the megapixels
seen in today's digital cameras," he added.
To replicate what a housefly "uses just two or three neurons to
do," Franceschini says scientists developed an 200-milligram
electronic brain to simulate the optic flow approach to flight.
They then mounted the rudimentary brain and a simple optic sensor
to a three-ounce miniature helicopter, and tethered the contraption
to a pole.
The result? "It demonstrated very similar behavior to insects,"
Franceschini told LiveScience. "It never crashes. One could easily
take an optic flow regulator and sensor and use it for aircraft to
navigate autonomously."
The scientists' research also shows similarities between
problems encountered by both human and insectoid aviators, such as
a tendency for honeybees to crash and drown when flying over bodies
of still water.
"There are no contrasting features in their field of view then,
so they have no visual cues to go by," Franceschini said.
"Helicopter pilots have the same problem in the desert."
That likely means there are still some "bugs" to be worked out,
before we see bug-brained UAVs...