Biologically Inspired Visual Odometer for a Freely Flying Robot

Fumiya Iida Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Department of Information Technology University of Zurich Winterthurerstr. 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland E-mail : [email protected] Abstract The ability to navigate in a complex environment is crucial for both animals and robots. Particularly flying insects are capable of surprisingly good navigation despite the small size and relative simplicity of their brains. Recent experimental research in biology has uncovered a number of different ways in which insects use cues derived from optical flow for navigational purposes, such as safe landing, obstacle avoidance and dead reckoning. In this study, we use a synthetic methodology to gain additional insights into the navigation behavior of bees, specifically focus on the mechanisms of course stabilization behavior and visually mediated odometer for the purpose of long distance goal-directed navigation. On the basis of a biology model of motion detector, we propose mechanisms for course stabilization behavior and visual odometer, and evaluate its performance with the blimp type flying robot platform in uncontrolled indoor environments. The result shows that the proposed mechanism can be used to provide an estimate of the distance traveled, but the performance depends on the route the robot follows. Further analysis is also conducted in order to improve the performance of the proposed method.