Graham and Philippides Arthropod Struct Dev 2017.pdf (1.88 MB)
Vision for navigation: what can we learn from ants?
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 08:05 authored by Paul GrahamPaul Graham, Andy PhilippidesAndy PhilippidesThe visual systems of all animals are used to provide information that can guide behaviour. In some cases insects demonstrate particularly impressive visually-guided behaviour and then we might reasonably ask how the low-resolution vision and limited neural resources of insects are tuned to particular behavioural strategies. Such questions are of interest to both biologists and to engineers seeking to emulate insectlevel performance with lightweight hardware. One behaviour that insects share with many animals is the use of learnt visual information for navigation. Desert ants, in particular, are expert visual navigators. Across their foraging life, ants can learn long idiosyncratic foraging routes. What's more, these routes are learnt quickly and the visual cues that define them can be implemented for guidance independently of other social or personal information. Here we review the style of visual navigation in solitary foraging ants and consider the physiological mechanisms that underpin it. Our perspective is to consider that robust navigation comes from the optimal interaction between behavioural strategy, visual mechanisms and neural hardware.We consider each of these in turn, highlighting the value of ant-like mechanisms in biomimetic endeavours.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Arthropod Structure & DevelopmentISSN
1467-8039Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Issue
5Volume
46Page range
718-722Department affiliated with
- Informatics Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-09-26First Open Access (FOA) Date
2018-08-02First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-09-25Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC