From biology to engineering: Insect vision and applications to robotics

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed a growing interest not only in understanding sensory biology, but also in applying the principles gleaned from these studies to the design of new, biologically inspired sensors for a variety engineering applications. This chapter provides a brief account of this interdisciplinary endeavour in the field of insect vision and flight guidance. Despite their diminutive eyes and brains, flying insects display superb agility and remarkable navigational competence. This review describes our current understanding of how insects use vision to stabilize flight, avoid collisions with objects, regulate flight speed, navigate to a distant food source, and orchestrate smooth landings. It also illustrates how some of these insights from biology are being used to develop novel algorithms for the guidance of terrestrial and airborne vehicles. We use this opportunity to also highlight some of the outstanding questions in this particular area of sensing and control.