By harnessing the remarkable ability that insects have to easily and swiftly navigate through dense vegetation, researchers have created a new system that can be applied to flying robots.
This revolutionary discovery was made by scientists from Lund University in Sweden. Seeing the world through the eyes of an insect, so to speak, allows drones to adjust their speed to their surroundings and fly completely on their own, without human intervention or control.
The ability to avoid collisions is crucial to animals and insects that live in environments with many obstacles, but it was not until recently that this unique ability was exploited to advance bio-inspired drones.
If nothing else, the recent study sheds new light on how bees flying through dense forests assess light intensity to avoid other objects and find passages in the vegetation to enable them to navigate safely.
"The system is so simple - it's highly likely that other animals also use light in this way. The system is ideal for adapting to small, lightweight robots, such as drones," said Emily Baird, co-researcher from Department of Biology at Lund University. "My guess is that this will become a reality within five to ten years."
Baird worked alongside her colleague Marie Dacke. Their findings demonstrate that insects, such as the green orchid bee in Panama rainforests, apply a strategy in which they assess light intensity to navigate quickly and effectively without crashing. Essentially, the insects are guided by light that penetrates gaps in leaves to determine if the particular hole is large enough for them to fly through without hitting the edges.
The idea is that similar mechanisms mimicking this ability can be applied to drones. However, the biological results from the rainforest studies must first be transformed into mathematical models and digital systems before it will be possible for robots to fly in complicated environments on their own.
"Using light to navigate in complex environments is a universal strategy that can be applied by both animals and machines to detect openings and get through them safely," Baird added. "Really, the coolest thing is the fact that insects have developed simple strategies to cope with difficult problems for which engineers have still to come up with a solution."
Their study was published in the April 6 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
