A simple strategy for detecting moving objects during locomotion revealed by animal-robot interactions.

An important role of visual systems is to detect nearby predators, prey, and potential mates, which may be distinguished in part by their motion. When an animal is at rest, an object moving in any direction may easily be detected by motion-sensitive visual circuits. During locomotion, however, this strategy is compromised because the observer must detect a moving object within the pattern of optic flow created by its own motion through the stationary background.

Flight dynamics and control of evasive maneuvers: the fruit fly's takeoff.

We have approached the problem of reverse-engineering the flight control mechanism of the fruit fly by studying the dynamics of the responses to a visual stimulus during takeoff. Building upon a prior framework [G. Card and M.

Wing and body motion during flight initiation in Drosophila revealed by automated visual tracking.

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is a widely used model organism in studies of genetics, developmental biology and biomechanics. One limitation for exploiting Drosophila as a model system for behavioral neurobiology is that measuring body kinematics during behavior is labor intensive and subjective. In order to quantify flight kinematics during different types of maneuvers, we have developed a visual tracking system that estimates the posture of the fly from multiple calibrated cameras.