Related papers: How Honeybees Perceive and Traverse Apertures
The collective behavior of numerous animal species, including insects, exhibits scale-free behavior indicative of the critical (second-order) phase transition. Previous research uncovered such phenomena in the behavior of honeybees, most…
In vegetated environments, such as forests, exploratory robots play a vital role in navigating complex, cluttered environments where human access is limited and traditional equipment struggles. Visual occlusion from obstacles, such as…
Insects exhibit remarkable cognitive skills in the field and several cognitive abilities have been demonstrated in Drosophila in the laboratory. By devising an ethologically relevant experimental setup that also allows comparison of…
Individuals traversing challenging obstacles are faced with a decision: they can adopt traversal strategies that minimally disrupt their normal locomotion patterns or they can adopt strategies that substantially alter their gait, conferring…
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
In this paper, we take an initial and novel step toward characterizing the physics of the hovering phenomenon in flapping insects and hummingbirds as a new class of extremum seeking (ES) feedback systems. By characterizing hovering flight…
Inverted landing is a challenging feat to perform in aerial robots, especially without external positioning. However, it is routinely performed by biological fliers such as bees, flies, and bats. Our previous observations of landing…
Insects and birds are often faced by opposing requirements for agile and stable flight. Here, we explore the interplay between aerodynamic effort, maneuverability, and stability in a model system that consists of a $\Lambda$-shaped flyer…
Flying insects execute aerial maneuvers through subtle manipulations of their wing motions. Here, we measure the free flight kinematics of fruit flies and determine how they modulate their wing pitching to induce sharp turns. By analyzing…
Drawing inspiration from honeybee swarms' nest-site selection process, we assess the ability of a kilobot robot swarm to replicate this captivating example of collective decision-making. Honeybees locate the optimal site for their new nest…
Swarming is a conspicuous behavioural trait observed in bird flocks, fish shoals, insect swarms and mammal herds. It is thought to improve collective awareness and offer protection from predators. Many current models involve the hypothesis…
Airborne insects generate a leading edge vortex when they flap their wings. This coherent vortex is a low pressure region that enhances the lift of flapping wings compared to fixed wings. Insect wings are thin membranes strengthened by a…
The waggle dance is one of the most popular examples of animal communication. Forager bees direct their nestmates to profitable resources via a complex motor display. Essentially, the dance encodes the polar coordinates to the resource in…
Computational approaches to the analysis of collective behavior in social insects increasingly rely on motion paths as an intermediate data layer from which one can infer individual behaviors or social interactions. Honey bees are a popular…
We discuss the problem of designing and implementing controllers for insect-scale flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FWMAVs), from a unifying perspective and employing two different experimental platforms; namely, a Harvard RoboBee-like…
Decoding the direction of translating objects in front of cluttered moving backgrounds, accurately and efficiently, is still a challenging problem. In nature, lightweight and low-powered flying insects apply motion vision to detect a moving…
While dragonflies are highly agile flyers, some key aerodynamic mechanisms responsible for their flight performance remain inadequately understood. Based on forward flight conditions, we investigate dragonfliess spanwise aerodynamic…
The centimeter-scale cyborg insects have a potential advantage for application in narrow environments where humans cannot operate. To realize such tasks, researchers have developed a small printed-circuit-board (PCB) which an insect can…
Swarming is an essential part of honeybee behaviour, wherein thousands of bees cling onto each other to form a dense cluster that may be exposed to the environment for several days. This cluster has the ability to maintain its core…
Many elastic structures have two possible equilibrium states: from umbrellas that become inverted in a sudden gust of wind, to nano-electromechanical switches, origami patterns and the hopper popper, which jumps after being turned…