Bioinspired Engineering of Exploration Systems for NASA and DoD

A new approach called bioinspired engineering of exploration systems (BEES) and its value for solving pressing NASA and DoD needs are described. Insects (for example honeybees and dragonflies) cope remarkably well with their world, despite possessing a brain containing less than 0.01% as many neurons as the human brain. Although most insects have immobile eyes with fixed focus optics and lack stereo vision, they use a number of ingenious, computationally simple strategies for perceiving their world in three dimensions and navigating successfully within it. We are distilling selected insect-inspired strategies to obtain novel solutions for navigation, hazard avoidance, altitude hold, stable flight, terrain following, and gentle deployment of payload. Such functionality provides potential solutions for future autonomous robotic space and planetary explorers. A BEES approach to developing lightweight low-power autonomous flight systems should be useful for flight control of such biomorphi...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: ALIFE
• Authors: Sarita Thakoor, Javaan S. Chahl, Mandyam V. Srinivasan, L. Young, Frank Werblin, Butler Hine, Steven Zornetzer
• Keywords: ALIFE 2002, ALIFE 2007, Biomorphic Flyers, Hybrid Biomorphic Flyers, Low-power Autonomous Flight