Researchers revealed the secrets of Fly Vision for faster flight control

By examining how fruit flies use eye movements with surprisingly fast reaction speeds to flight control, about 30 times faster than the blink of an eye – Penn State researchers have detailed a framework for mimicking this capability in robotics.

In a paper published today by researchers, the researchers described the motion of fruit flies, built by LED lights and tethered in a virtual reality flight simulator. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Benjamin Cellini, a doctoral student studying mechanical engineering and the first author of the paper, said: Exists, ”said Benjamin Sellini, a doctoral student studying mechanical engineering and the first author of the paper.

Selini and her mentor, Jean-Michel Monjeu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Bio-Motion Systems Lab, were able to determine how fruit flies use eye movements to quickly coordinate their wings in response to what they are seeing. With the fly’s eyes fixed on the head, the researchers tracked the head’s movements to get to where the flies were watching.

Observing gaze is a common phenomenon that can do most living things. For example, we move our eyes, head, and / or body seamlessly to scan any room.

“But it’s a challenging, complex problem to understand. How are we and other animals capable of doing so well?” Monjeu said. “My lab is interested in active sensing, a branch of engineering and biology that studies how sensor motion, such as when scanning a room, can enhance sensation itself.”

While much of previous research in this area has focused on wing movements, understanding how animals like flies use active eye movement to control flies leads to an increase in robotics. Currently, most robots have static sensors, keeping sensing and duped movements. However, by better simulating the eyes and brain through the integration of visual sensors capable of moving on the body, the flight control of robots can be greatly improved.

In support of this theory, the researchers decided that the eyes of a fruit fly would be able to react four times faster than the body or wings of an animal. These reactions were also strongly linked, and showed that flies rely heavily on eye movements to coordinate their wing movements.

“We’ve shown that by reducing motion blur, their eyes can better control and stabilize their vision than we originally thought,” Cellini said. “Like sports, they teach baseball players to follow the ball with their eyes to reduce opacity and increase batting performance.”

In addition, they found that when flies carefully glued their heads and then recorded them in a virtual reality flight simulator, the limitations of their head movements had a dramatic effect on flight performance.

“One of the important theories we discovered here was that fly eyes slow down the visual motion that goes into the brain and this process increases their flying behavior.”

Demonstrated in this work, the researchers believe that unlocking the secrets of the biological world can have a far-reaching effect on technology.

“In engineering, you are taught to apply the principles of mathematics and physics to solve problems,” Selini said. “If you want to build a robot to fly on Mars you can use engineering concepts to provide possible solutions. But we don’t always have to develop ideas from scratch; we can also get inspiration from nature.”