A bio-inspired sighted robot chases like a hoverfly

Abstract

Here we present a novel bio-inspired visual processing system, which enables a robot to locate and follow a target, using an artificial compound eye called CurvACE. This visual sensor actively scanned the environment at an imposed frequency (50Hz) with an angular scanning amplitude of 4.2 • and succeeded in locating a textured cylindrical target with hyperacuity, i.e. much finer resolution than the coarse inter-receptor angle of the compound eye. Equipped with this small, lightweight visual scanning sensor, a Mecanum-wheeled mobile robot named ACEbot was able to follow a target at a constant distance by localizing the right and left edges of the target. The localization of the target's contrasted edges is based on a bio-inspired summation of Gaussian receptive fields in the visual system. By means of its autoadaptive pixels, ACEbot consistently achieved similar pursuit performances under various lighting conditions with a high level of repeatability. The robotic pursuit pattern mimics finely the behavior of the male fly Syritta Pipens L. while pursuing the female. The high similarity in the trajectories as well as the biomimicry of the visual system provides strong support for the hypothesis that flies do maintain center the target and constant its subtended angle during smooth pursuit. Moreover, we discuss the fact that such simple strategy can also provide a trajectory compatible with motion camouflage.

Insect-inspired AI for autonomous robots

“…Parsimonious solutions used by insects exist for many other tasks that are relevant to robotics. These include optic flow-based visual navigation for obstacle avoidance (48,72,(110)(111)(112), target following (113), altitude control (114,115), and landing (116). For many of these tasks, the main principles are known, but the exact mechanisms that should be implemented in robots are an area of active research.…”

Camouflage in a dynamic world

“…In hoverflies [35] and dragonflies [36], a pursuer matches its relative position and speed to that of the target individual such that its projected image on the target's retina is relatively invariant, and so the optic flow is similar to that created by the background. The algorithms that an insect might use to achieve this have, more recently, been applied to control systems for missiles and ships that seek to intercept a target whilst minimising their own detectability [8,37,38] (Figure 3).…”

An ant-inspired celestial compass applied to autonomous outdoor robot navigation

“…As experimental studies have shown that desert ants can use either of these sensory modes, it was proposed here to test all the possibilities involving these cues. The optic flow has long been used for odometric cues estimation [61,62] as well as obstacle avoidance [63,64,65] or object tracking [66]. Multiple strategies have been proposed and mostly make use of high-resolution cameras 5 .…”