Insect-Like Brain Flies Onboard Micro-Helicopter

Lessons learned over 30 years of research into the minds of insects may soon bear fruit in the increasingly complex field of unmanned aerial vehicles, if Nicolas Franceschini has anything to say about it.

Franceschini, a neurophysiologist and engineer at France’s National Center for Scientific Research and at the University of the Mediterranean, told LiveScience.com scientists could learn much from studying the smallest flying creatures.

"It's extraordinary to see flies navigate with just their small 10-milligram brains," said Franceschini. "They can do a lot with so little."

Scientists have adapted a miniature helicopter with an electronic brain that simulates the way insects view flight -- which could just lead to better flight characteristics for unmanned aircraft.

Insects use the changing view of the ground, called "optic flow," to measure their height and speed. Insect brains aren't very complex... so Franceschini says bugs use these two measurements to gauge their relationship with the sky. In short, if a bug speeds up, it climbs... and if it slows down, it descends.

"They don't need a speedometer or altimeter. They just need to use their eyes," said Franceschini. "Each compound eye of a housefly only can see 3,000 pixels, nothing like the megapixels seen in today's digital cameras," he added.

To replicate what a housefly "uses just two or three neurons to do," Franceschini says scientists developed an 200-milligram electronic brain to simulate the optic flow approach to flight. They then mounted the rudimentary brain and a simple optic sensor to a three-ounce miniature helicopter, and tethered the contraption to a pole.

The result? "It demonstrated very similar behavior to insects," Franceschini told LiveScience. "It never crashes. One could easily take an optic flow regulator and sensor and use it for aircraft to navigate autonomously."

The scientists' research also shows similarities between problems encountered by both human and insectoid aviators, such as a tendency for honeybees to crash and drown when flying over bodies of still water.

"There are no contrasting features in their field of view then, so they have no visual cues to go by," Franceschini said. "Helicopter pilots have the same problem in the desert."

That likely means there are still some "bugs" to be worked out, before we see bug-brained UAVs...

FMI: http://www.cnrs.fr/