Estimation and Control of Self-motion and Gaze in Flying Insects

Holger G. Krapp

Abstract:	ABSTRACT The stunning maneouvrability observed in flying insects did attract much attention from biologists and engineers over the last decade or so. Biologists, fascinated by insect flight performance, have taken several different approaches in order to understand how the insect nervous system computes signals necessary and sufficient to establish powerful closed–loop motor control circuits. Quantitative behavioural observations combined with measurement of the activity in the nervous system were complemented with modeling studies mainly focused on the contributions of individual sensory mechanisms to the functional organization of stabilization reflexes. It becomes more and more obvious, however, that it is the orchestration of several sensory mechanisms operating simultaneously which enables motor control over an extended dynamic range. More recent research aims at discovering general principles in multisensor fusion and sensor-rich feedback control flying insects have evolved to master stabilization tasks during flight. Engineers follow current progress in excitement wondering whether biological control systems may inspire the design of technical applications in man-made devices. In this paper I will review some evidence suggesting that the visual system of flying insects, such as flies and locusts focus, is particularly well adapted to sense selfmotion by analyzing panoramic retinal image shift. I will also present evidence obtained at the level of identified neural circuits that the combination of sensory information different modalities provide takes place unexpectedly early along the sensorimotor pathways. In multisensor fusion the visual system appears to play a pivotal role when signals gathered in sensory coordinates are transformed into coordinated the various motor systems employ when performing stabilization reflexes.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2007) April 23 - 25, 2007 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	109 - 120
Cite this article:	Krapp, Holger G., "Estimation and Control of Self-motion and Gaze in Flying Insects," Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2007), Cambridge, MA, April 2007, pp. 109-120.
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