Engineered Biomimicry Chapter 9. Flight Control Using Biomimetic Optical Sensors

Insects are dependent on the spatial, spectral, and temporal distributions of light in the environment for flight control and navigation. This chapter reports on flight trials of implementations of insect-inspired behaviors on unmanned aerial vehicles. Optical-flow methods for maintaining a constant height above ground and a constant course have been demonstrated to provide navigational capabilities that are impossible using conventional avionics sensors. Precision control of height above ground and ground course were achieved over long distances. Other demonstrated vision-based techniques include a biomimetic stabilization sensor that uses the ultraviolet and green bands of the spectrum and a sky polarization compass. Both of these sensors were tested over long trajectories in different directions, in each case showing performance similar to low-cost inertial heading and attitude systems.