Insect-inspired Robots

problems of movement, vision and navigation processing data that would challenge a supercomputer. How they do it is driving one of the most exciting new fields of technology—biomimetics and biorobotics, the imitation of insect systems to control man-made machines. Delegates at a recent conference presented some outcomes of their work in this area. B Dr Alex Zelinsky suggested that the method by which wasps use landmarks to find their way back to the nest may one day be part of a system for navigating cars that ‘know’ where to go. A research team led by Dr Zelinsky has shown that a robot can navigate its way along 50 different landmarks by recognizing them individually using a panoramic camera. “The inspiration came from biology, where wasps use a practice called ‘turn back and look’ to orient themselves as they emerge from its nest. By flying to and fro, they lock in images of the nest from different angles and perspectives, so they can recognize it again,” he explained. The robot’s panoramic camera logs the surrounding area and its key landmarks, which are then sorted in its computer according to how reliable they are as navigational aids. The landmarks are then scaled, from small to large, so that the robot can…