scholarly journals The roles of vision and antennal mechanoreception in hawkmoth flight control

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajinkya Dahake ◽  
Anna Stöckl ◽  
James J. Foster ◽  
Sanjay P. Sane ◽  
Almut Kelber
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Body Position ◽  
Temporal Frequency ◽  
Macroglossum Stellatarum ◽  
Position And Orientation ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Artificial Flowers

Flying animals need constant sensory feedback about their body position and orientation for flight control. The visual system provides essential but slow feedback. In contrast, mechanosensory channels can provide feedback at much shorter timescales. How the contributions from these two senses are integrated remains an open question in most insect groups. In Diptera, fast mechanosensory feedback is provided by organs called halteres, and is crucial for the control of rapid flight manoeuvres, while vision controls manoeuvres in lower temporal frequency bands. Here we have investigated the visual-mechanosensory integration in an insect which lacks halteres: the hawkmoth Macroglossum stellatarum. They represent a large group of insects that use Johnston’s organs in their antennae to provide mechanosensory feedback on perturbations in body position. High-speed videos of freely-flying hawkmoths hovering at stationary or oscillating artificial flowers showed that positional fidelity during flight was reduced in flagella ablated animals, but was recovered after flagella re-attachment. Our experiments show that antennal mechanosensory feedback specifically mediates fast flight manoeuvres, but not slow ones. Differences in the latency of visual feedback (in different light intensities) affected all antennal conditions equally, suggesting there was no compensatory interaction between antennal and visual feedback under the tested conditions. These results establish the importance of antennal mechanosensors in providing rapid mechanosensory feedback for finer control of flight manoeuvres, acting in parallel to visual feedback.

scholarly journals The roles of vision and antennal mechanoreception in hawkmoth flight control

eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajinkya Dahake ◽  
Anna L Stöckl ◽  
James J Foster ◽  
Sanjay P Sane ◽  
Almut Kelber
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Body Position ◽  
Temporal Frequency ◽  
Macroglossum Stellatarum ◽  
Position And Orientation ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Compensatory Interactions

Flying animals need continual sensory feedback about their body position and orientation for flight control. The visual system provides essential but slow feedback. In contrast, mechanosensory channels can provide feedback at much shorter timescales. How the contributions from these two senses are integrated remains an open question in most insect groups. In Diptera, fast mechanosensory feedback is provided by organs called halteres and is crucial for the control of rapid flight manoeuvres, while vision controls manoeuvres in lower temporal frequency bands. Here, we have investigated the visual-mechanosensory integration in the hawkmoth Macroglossum stellatarum. They represent a large group of insects that use Johnston’s organs in their antennae to provide mechanosensory feedback on perturbations in body position. Our experiments show that antennal mechanosensory feedback specifically mediates fast flight manoeuvres, but not slow ones. Moreover, we did not observe compensatory interactions between antennal and visual feedback.

scholarly journals A faster escape does not enhance survival in zebrafish larvae

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1852) ◽  
pp. 20170359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjun Nair ◽  
Christy Nguyen ◽  
Matthew J. McHenry
Keyword(s):  
High Speed ◽  
Larval Fish ◽  
Body Position ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
The Body ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Fish Prey ◽  
Zebrafish Larvae ◽  
Fish Predators

An escape response is a rapid manoeuvre used by prey to evade predators. Performing this manoeuvre at greater speed, in a favourable direction, or from a longer distance have been hypothesized to enhance the survival of prey, but these ideas are difficult to test experimentally. We examined how prey survival depends on escape kinematics through a novel combination of experimentation and mathematical modelling. This approach focused on zebrafish ( Danio rerio ) larvae under predation by adults and juveniles of the same species. High-speed three-dimensional kinematics were used to track the body position of prey and predator and to determine the probability of behavioural actions by both fish. These measurements provided the basis for an agent-based probabilistic model that simulated the trajectories of the animals. Predictions of survivorship by this model were found by Monte Carlo simulations to agree with our observations and we examined how these predictions varied by changing individual model parameters. Contrary to expectation, we found that survival may not be improved by increasing the speed or altering the direction of the escape. Rather, zebrafish larvae operate with sufficiently high locomotor performance due to the relatively slow approach and limited range of suction feeding by fish predators. We did find that survival was enhanced when prey responded from a greater distance. This is an ability that depends on the capacity of the visual and lateral line systems to detect a looming threat. Therefore, performance in sensing, and not locomotion, is decisive for improving the survival of larval fish prey. These results offer a framework for understanding the evolution of predator–prey strategy that may inform prey survival in a broad diversity of animals.

Design of sliding mode flight control system for a flexible aircraft

2021 ◽  
pp. 095441002110455
Author(s):  
Majeed Mohamed ◽  
Madhavan Gopakumar
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Rigid Body ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Sliding Mode ◽  
Flight Mechanics ◽  
Frequency Separation ◽  
Flight Control System ◽  
Flexible Aircraft ◽  
Aircraft Dynamics

The evolution of large transport aircraft is characterized by longer fuselages and larger wingspans, while efforts to decrease the structural weight reduce the structural stiffness. Both effects lead to more flexible aircraft structures with significant aeroelastic coupling between flight mechanics and structural dynamics, especially at high speed, high altitude cruise. The lesser frequency separation between rigid body and flexible modes of flexible aircraft results in a stronger interaction between the flight control system and its structural modes, with higher flexibility effects on aircraft dynamics. Therefore, the design of a flight control law based on the assumption that the aircraft dynamics are rigid is no longer valid for the flexible aircraft. This paper focuses on the design of a flight control system for flexible aircraft described in terms of a rigid body mode and four flexible body modes and whose parameters are assumed to be varying. In this paper, a conditional integral based sliding mode control (SMC) is used for robust tracking control of the pitch angle of the flexible aircraft. The performance of the proposed nonlinear flight control system has been shown through the numerical simulations of the flexible aircraft. Good transient and steady-state performance of a control system are also ensured without suffering from the drawback of control chattering in SMC.

Tilt-Wing Rotorcraft Dynamic Analysis Using Multibody Formulation

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. O’Heron ◽  
Parviz E. Nikravesh ◽  
Ara Arabyan ◽  
Donald L. Kunz
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Equations Of Motion ◽  
Flight Path ◽  
Minimal Set ◽  
Near Wake ◽  
Highly Nonlinear ◽  
Nonlinear Transient ◽  
Nonlinear Transient Dynamics ◽  
Rotor Assembly

Abstract A model is presented that can be used to simulate the highly nonlinear transient dynamics associated with advanced rotorcraft conversion processes. Multibody equations of motion of the fuselage, the tilting wing, and the rotor assembly are derived using a minimal set of coordinates. An enhanced aerodynamics model is employed to account for unsteadiness and nonlinearity in the near-wake aerodynamics, with a dynamic uniform inflow to compute the far-wake aerodynamics, and a flight control system is employed to compute the blade pitch settings that are necessary to achieve a desired flight path. The model is subjected to a demanding flight path simulation to illustrate that it can perform vertical take-off, hover, tilt-wing conversion, and high-speed forward flight maneuvers effectively.

Real-Time Microforce Sensors and High Speed Vision System for Insect Flight Control Analysis

2008 ◽  
pp. 451-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chauncey F. Graetzel ◽  
Steven N. Fry ◽  
Felix Beyeler ◽  
Yu Sun ◽  
Bradley J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Insect Flight ◽  
Vision System ◽  
Control Analysis

The Role of Online Visual Feedback for the Control of Target-Directed and Allocentric Hand Movements

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 846-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lore Thaler ◽  
Melvyn A. Goodale
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Sensorimotor Control ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Target Locations

Studies that have investigated how sensory feedback about the moving hand is used to control hand movements have relied on paradigms such as pointing or reaching that require subjects to acquire target locations. In the context of these target-directed tasks, it has been found repeatedly that the human sensory-motor system relies heavily on visual feedback to control the ongoing movement. This finding has been formalized within the framework of statistical optimality according to which different sources of sensory feedback are combined such as to minimize variance in sensory information during movement control. Importantly, however, many hand movements that people perform every day are not target-directed, but based on allocentric (object-centered) visual information. Examples of allocentric movements are gesture imitation, drawing, or copying. Here we tested if visual feedback about the moving hand is used in the same way to control target-directed and allocentric hand movements. The results show that visual feedback is used significantly more to reduce movement scatter in the target-directed as compared with the allocentric movement task. Furthermore, we found that differences in the use of visual feedback between target-directed and allocentric hand movements cannot be explained based on differences in uncertainty about the movement goal. We conclude that the role played by visual feedback for movement control is fundamentally different for target-directed and allocentric movements. The results suggest that current computational and neural models of sensorimotor control that are based entirely on data derived from target-directed paradigms have to be modified to accommodate performance in the allocentric tasks used in our experiments. As a consequence, the results cast doubt on the idea that models of sensorimotor control developed exclusively from data obtained in target-directed paradigms are also valid in the context of allocentric tasks, such as drawing, copying, or imitative gesturing, that characterize much of human behavior.

scholarly journals Vision-based flight control in the hawkmoth Hyles lineata

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (91) ◽  
pp. 20130921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane P. Windsor ◽  
Richard J. Bomphrey ◽  
Graham K. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
Insect Flight ◽  
Linear Time ◽  
Temporal Frequency ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Flight Dynamics ◽  
Energetic Cost ◽  
Linear Time Invariant ◽  
Hyles Lineata ◽  
And Control

Vision is a key sensory modality for flying insects, playing an important role in guidance, navigation and control. Here, we use a virtual-reality flight simulator to measure the optomotor responses of the hawkmoth Hyles lineata , and use a published linear-time invariant model of the flight dynamics to interpret the function of the measured responses in flight stabilization and control. We recorded the forces and moments produced during oscillation of the visual field in roll, pitch and yaw, varying the temporal frequency, amplitude or spatial frequency of the stimulus. The moths’ responses were strongly dependent upon contrast frequency, as expected if the optomotor system uses correlation-type motion detectors to sense self-motion. The flight dynamics model predicts that roll angle feedback is needed to stabilize the lateral dynamics, and that a combination of pitch angle and pitch rate feedback is most effective in stabilizing the longitudinal dynamics. The moths’ responses to roll and pitch stimuli coincided qualitatively with these functional predictions. The moths produced coupled roll and yaw moments in response to yaw stimuli, which could help to reduce the energetic cost of correcting heading. Our results emphasize the close relationship between physics and physiology in the stabilization of insect flight.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document