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How honeybees make grazing landings on flat surfaces
journal contribution
posted on 2000-01-01, 00:00 authored by M Srinivasan, S Zhang, J Chahl, E Barth, Svetha VenkateshSvetha VenkateshFreely flying bees were filmed as they landed on a flat, horizontal surface, to investigate the underlying visuomotor control strategies. The results reveal that (1) landing bees approach the surface at a relatively shallow descent angle; (2) they tend to hold the angular velocity of the image of the surface constant as they approach it; and (3) the instantaneous speed of descent is proportional to the instantaneous forward speed. These characteristics reflect a surprisingly simple and effective strategy for achieving a smooth landing, by which the forward and descent speeds are automatically reduced as the surface is approached and are both close to zero at touchdown. No explicit knowledge of flight speed or height above the ground is necessary. A model of the control scheme is developed and its predictions are verified. It is also shown that, during landing, the bee decelerates continuously and in such a way as to keep the projected time to touchdown constant as the surface is approached. The feasibility of this landing strategy is demonstrated by implementation in a robotic gantry equipped with vision.
History
Journal
Biological cyberneticsVolume
83Issue
3Pagination
171 - 183Publisher
SpringerLocation
Berlin, GermanyPublisher DOI
ISSN
0340-1200eISSN
1432-0770Language
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2000, Springer-VerlagUsage metrics
Keywords
beebiological modelcomputer simulationcyberneticsflyingphysiologypsychomotor performanceScience & TechnologyTechnologyLife Sciences & BiomedicineComputer Science, CyberneticsNeurosciencesComputer ScienceNeurosciences & NeurologyVISUAL CONTROLINSECTSFLIGHTFLOWArtificial Intelligence and Image Processing
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