Hardware architecture and cutting-edge assembly process of a tiny curved compound eye.

The demand for bendable sensors increases constantly in the challenging field of soft and micro-scale robotics. We present here, in more detail, the flexible, functional, insect-inspired curved artificial compound eye (CurvACE) that was previously introduced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, 2013). This cylindrically-bent sensor with a large panoramic field-of-view of 180° × 60° composed of 630 artificial ommatidia weighs only 1.

A biomimetic vision-based hovercraft accounts for bees' complex behaviour in various corridors.

Here we present the first systematic comparison between the visual guidance behaviour of a biomimetic robot and those of honeybees flying in similar environments. We built a miniature hovercraft which can travel safely along corridors with various configurations. For the first time, we implemented on a real physical robot the 'lateral optic flow regulation autopilot', which we previously studied computer simulations.

Miniature curved artificial compound eyes.

In most animal species, vision is mediated by compound eyes, which offer lower resolution than vertebrate single-lens eyes, but significantly larger fields of view with negligible distortion and spherical aberration, as well as high temporal resolution in a tiny package. Compound eyes are ideally suited for fast panoramic motion perception. Engineering a miniature artificial compound eye is challenging because it requires accurate alignment of photoreceptive and optical components on a curved surface.

Honeybees' speed depends on dorsal as well as lateral, ventral and frontal optic flows.

Flying insects use the optic flow to navigate safely in unfamiliar environments, especially by adjusting their speed and their clearance from surrounding objects. It has not yet been established, however, which specific parts of the optical flow field insects use to control their speed. With a view to answering this question, freely flying honeybees were trained to fly along a specially designed tunnel including two successive tapering parts: the first part was tapered in the vertical plane and the second one, in the horizontal plane.

Honeybees change their height to restore their optic flow.

To further elucidate the mechanisms underlying insects' height and speed control, we trained outdoor honeybees to fly along a high-roofed tunnel, part of which was equipped with a moving floor. Honeybees followed the stationary part of the floor at a given height. On encountering the moving part of the floor, which moved in the same direction as their flight, honeybees descended and flew at a lower height, thus gradually restoring their ventral optic flow (OF) to a similar value to that they had percieved when flying over the stationary part of the floor.

A bee in the corridor: centering and wall-following.

In an attempt to better understand the mechanism underlying lateral collision avoidance in flying insects, we trained honeybees (Apis mellifera) to fly through a large (95-cm wide) flight tunnel. We found that, depending on the entrance and feeder positions, honeybees would either center along the corridor midline or fly along one wall. Bees kept following one wall even when a major (150-cm long) part of the opposite wall was removed.

A bio-inspired flying robot sheds light on insect piloting abilities.

When insects are flying forward, the image of the ground sweeps backward across their ventral viewfield and forms an "optic flow," which depends on both the groundspeed and the groundheight. To explain how these animals manage to avoid the ground by using this visual motion cue, we suggest that insect navigation hinges on a visual-feedback loop we have called the optic-flow regulator, which controls the vertical lift. To test this idea, we built a micro-helicopter equipped with an optic-flow regulator and a bio-inspired optic-flow sensor.

Simple, versatile and highly diastereoselective synthesis of 1,3,4-trisubstituted-2-oxopiperazine-containing peptidomimetic precursors.

The selective O-deprotection of (1'S)-4-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)-1-[1'-phenylmethyloxymethyl-2'-[(tert-butyldimethylsilyl)oxy]ethyl]-2-oxopiperazine furnished an enantiomerically pure alcohol whose regio- and diastereoselective C3-alkylation yielded either (3R)- or (3S)-1,3,4-trisubstituted-2-oxopiperazines in high diastereomeric purity. These derivatives were efficiently transformed into (1'R)- or (1'S)-peptide templates utilizable to prepare peptidomimetics. This method provides easy access to each 1,3,4-trisubstituted-2-oxopiperazine diastereomer and facilitates, through the large choice of substituents at the 3-position together with the chemistry that can be performed on the N1 substituent, the preparation of a large number of diastereomerically pure constrained peptidomimetics from a single precursor.

Visual guidance based on optic flow: a biorobotic approach.

This paper addresses some basic questions as to how vision links up with action and serves to guide locomotion in both biological and artificial creatures. The thorough knowledge gained during the past five decades on insects' sensory-motor abilities and the neuronal substrates involved has provided us with a rich source of inspiration for designing tomorrow's self-guided vehicles and micro-vehicles, which will be able to cope with unforeseen events on the ground, under water, in the air, in space, on other planets, and inside the human body. Insects can teach us some useful tricks for designing agile autonomous robots.