Canberra, Friday 16 November, 2001
ANU researchers claim science prize for bee research
A team of researchers based at The Australian National University, has
been awarded the prestigious 2001 Australasian Science Prize for research
into bee vision and navigation. The highly specialised work has paved
the way towards developing artificially intelligent military aircraft.
Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, Dr Shaowu Zhang and Dr Javaan Chahl of
the Australian National University's Centre for Visual Sciences, share
this year's Australasian Science Prize. The trio has spent several years
studying bees and how they navigate their way to a nectar source. In the
process the group has overthrown several long-held misconceptions about
how bees see.
Dispelling the belief that bees judge the distance they have flown from
the amount of energy they have expended, Professor Srinivasan and colleagues
measured how much a bee sees as it travels past the landscape (optic flow).
They did this by controlling how much information the bee brain received
from each eye as it flew along a specially constructed tunnel. The measurements
established the central role of optic flow in bee navigation.
The group's findings are now helping solve one of the most difficult
problems in artificial intelligence - designing controls that allow an
aircraft to pilot itself. The trio has adapted the processes occurring
in the bee's eyes and brain and installed the data in a computer, which
can autonomously navigate a model aircraft.
The team's latest unpublished research effort has involved the design
and testing of autonomously piloted helicopters. On board, with a camera
and GPS satellite positioner, are sensors like a gyroscope, an accelerometer
and a magnetometer. The clever "flying" computer responds to
vision from the camera according to optic flow, just like a bee and controls
the flight. There have been no crashes so far.
For more information contact: Professor Mandyam Srinivasan 02
6125 2409 or 0410 417 685 or Dr Peter Pockley 02 9660 6363.
No: 93/2001
© 2000 Marketing & Communications Division,
The Australian National University.
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Last Modified Tue, July 16, 2002
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