A biohybrid fly-robot interface system that performs active collision avoidance

Abstract

We have designed a bio-hybrid fly-robot interface (FRI) to study sensorimotor control in insects. The FRI consists of a miniaturized recording platform mounted on a two-wheeled robot and is controlled by the neuronal spiking activity of an identified visual interneuron, the blowfly H1-cell. For a given turning radius of the robot, we found a proportional relationship between the spike rate of the H1-cell and the relative distance of the FRI from the patterned wall of an experimental arena. Under closed-loop conditions during oscillatory forward movements biased towards the wall, collision avoidance manoeuvres were triggered whenever the H1-cell spike rate exceeded a certain threshold value. We also investigated the FRI behaviour in corners of the arena. The ultimate goal is to enable autonomous and energy-efficient manoeuvrings of the FRI within arbitrary visual environments.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Sep 06, 2019
Source ID
10.1088/1748-3190/ab3b23

Entities

People

  • Holger G. Krapp
  • Jiaqi Huang
  • Yiran Wei

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Tags

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Military Logistics and Supply Chain Management
  • Neuroscience

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Autonomous Systems
  • Autonomy