Sensorimotor control of navigation in arthropod and artificial systems

Webb, Barbara; Harrison, R.R.; Willis, Mark A.

doi:10.1016/j.asd.2004.05.009

Cited by 45 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 138 publications

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“…We could show that, in contrast to an older hypothesis (Götz 1975), the smooth and continuous optomotor controller is incapable of controlling wall avoidance in our setup, even if it is parameterised to create a realistic optomotor following response to pure rotational stimuli. However, in accordance with previous studies (Webb et al 2004), such a controller can compensate for systematic asymmetries of the motor system. For the path stabilisation task, the optomotor circuit may very well be active in the fly evaluating the optic flow in parallel to a visual saccadic controller.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Consistent with other technical implementations (Harrison and Koch 1999;Webb et al 2004), the system is able to correct for a motor bias in a combination of translatory and rotatory self-motion. In the example shown in Fig.…”

Section: Performance Of the Optomotor Controllersupporting

confidence: 69%

“…The generation of large saccades in response to strong frontal expansion flow, as discussed recently for Drosophila (Bender and Dickinson 2006) could solve this problem. Similar mechanisms to avoid frontal expansion were also proposed (Neumann 2004) and successfully tested on robots (Webb et al 2004). The generation of large saccades when approaching a wall perpendicularly can also be accomplished in our cyberfly with a simple extension of the transformation of the HSE difference signal into saccade amplitude.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…Given the ability of flies to perform extraordinarily acrobatic flight manoeuvres, it may not be surprising that there have been various attempts to implement fly-inspired optic flow models in simulation and on robotic platforms (Franz et al 2004;review: Franz and Mallot 2000;Neumann 2004;Webb et al 2004;Zufferey and Floreano 2006). On the one hand, these approaches usually employed simplified versions of the sensory models.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Saccadic flight strategy facilitates collision avoidance: closed-loop performance of a cyberfly

et al. 2008

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Behavioural and electrophysiological experiments suggest that blowflies employ an active saccadic strategy of flight and gaze control to separate the rotational from the translational optic flow components. As a consequence, this allows motion sensitive neurons to encode during translatory intersaccadic phases of locomotion information about the spatial layout of the environment. So far, it has not been clear whether and how a motor controller could decode the responses of these neurons to prevent a blowfly from colliding with obstacles. Here we propose a simple model of the blowfly visual course control system, named cyberfly, and investigate its performance and limitations. The sensory input module of the cyberfly emulates a pair of output neurons subserving the two eyes of the blowfly visual motion pathway. We analyse two sensory-motor interfaces (SMI). An SMI coupling the differential signal of the sensory neurons proportionally to the yaw rotation fails to avoid obstacles. A more plausible SMI is based on a saccadic controller. Even with sideward drift after saccades as is characteristic of real blowflies, the cyberfly is able to successfully avoid collisions with obstacles. The relative distance information contained in the optic flow during translatory movements between saccades is provided to the SMI by the responses of the visual output neurons. An obvious limitation of this simple mechanism is its strong dependence on the textural properties of the environment.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Performance Of the Optomotor Controllersupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Saccadic flight strategy facilitates collision avoidance: closed-loop performance of a cyberfly

et al. 2008

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“…Many studies have revealed that multisensory integration plays an important role during insect orientation and navigation (Harley et al, 2009;Giurfa, 2007;Stewart et al, 2010;Webb et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic use of optic flow during pheromone tracking by the male silkmoth, Bombyx mori

Pansopha

Ando

Kanzaki

2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Several insects require both olfactory and visual cues during odoursource localisation to successfully locate an odour source. In the male silkmoth, Bombyx mori, detection of the female sex pheromone triggers a programmed walking pattern, starting from a surge (straight-line walking) followed by zigzag walking. Although pheromone-triggered behaviour in silkmoths is well understood, the role of visual cues remains obscure. To address this question, we performed behavioural experiments on tethered-walking moths by recording their locomotion during stimulation with a pheromone and a visual motion pattern (optic flow). The experiments were conducted under open-and closed-loop visual stimuli. We found that the use of optic flow input was determined by the behavioural state of surge and zigzagging. Silkmoths exhibited an optomotor response, which is a behavioural visual response, by turning towards the same direction as optic flow stimuli only during surge, but not during zigzagging. In addition, modulation of the zigzag walking pattern was observed when the moths were presented with biased closed-loop visual stimuli (visual feedback with biased constant optic flow); however, the directional preference mechanism was different from that of the optomotor response. Based on these findings, we suggest that the optomotor response is utilised for course control during straight-line walking, whereas the absence of optomotor response during zigzagging is used to effectively perform the programmed walking pattern. Considering the neural basis of programmed behaviour, we speculate that at least two visual pathways are involved in the statedependent use of optic flow during odour tracking behaviour in silkmoths.

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Chemical Plume Tracking Behavior in Animals and Mobile Robots

Willis

2008

Navigation

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The most important and challenging feat of navigation for many animals is locating important resources by tracking fluid-borne chemicals. As molecules of a source dissolve into flowing air or water they form a patchy turbulent plume which results in the intermittent stimulation required by many odor tracking animals. Most animals need two pieces of information to track a plume: (1) the presence of odor, and (2) the direction of the flow. In most cases, steering into the flow and moving upstream while in contact with odor should lead the tracker to the odor's source. How plume trackers sample for odor information and what rules they use to generate the behavior we observe have been addressed using computer simulations or mobile robots as models of the biological trackers. These approaches also result in the development of control algorithms for autonomous man-made plume tracking systems.

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Sensorimotor control of navigation in arthropod and artificial systems

Cited by 45 publications

References 138 publications

Saccadic flight strategy facilitates collision avoidance: closed-loop performance of a cyberfly

Saccadic flight strategy facilitates collision avoidance: closed-loop performance of a cyberfly

Dynamic use of optic flow during pheromone tracking by the male silkmoth, Bombyx mori

Chemical Plume Tracking Behavior in Animals and Mobile Robots

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