Bird-Inspired Stabilization

Background

Vision is a fundamental sense for most animals. Therefore, keeping the organ responsible for vision stable is key to ensuring that visual information is correctly acquired. The most common natural reflexes for keeping the gaze stable are the optokinetic response, saccades, the vestibuloocular reflex acting on the eye, and the vestibulocollic reflex acting on the neck. A robotic implementation of human reflexes has already shown improved camera stabilization when compared with traditional control methods [1].

However, humans are far from the best example of eye stabilization in the animal kingdom, birds demonstrate a much higher ability to stabilize in response to body perturbations [2-3]. This can be attributed to the fact that birds possess two vestibular organs instead of one [4].

Therefore, the objective of this project is to take inspiration from the bird’s physiology and implement a bird-inspired neural circuit for camera stabilization. The goal is to better understand how birds make use of information from both vestibular organs, improve the state-of-the-art stabilization systems, and explore the potential for applying this knowledge to space applications.

References

1. Falotico, E., Cauli, N., Kryczka, P., Hashimoto, K., Berthoz, A., Takanishi, A., Dario, P. and Laschi, C., 2017. Head stabilization in a humanoid robot: models and implementations. Autonomous Robots, 41, pp.349-365.
2. Goode, Christopher T., et al. "Visual influences on the development and recovery of the vestibuloocular reflex in the chicken." Journal of Neurophysiology 85.3 (2001): 1119-1128.
3. McArthur, K.L. and Dickman, J.D., 2008. Canal and otolith contributions to compensatory tilt responses in pigeons. Journal of neurophysiology, 100(3), pp.1488-1497.
4. Necker, R., 2006. Specializations in the lumbosacral vertebral canal and spinal cord of birds: evidence of a function as a sense organ which is involved in the control of walking. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 192, pp.439-448.