Ando Noriyasu, Emoto Shuhei, Kanzaki Ryohei
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo;
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo.
J Vis Exp. 2016 Dec 19(118):54802. doi: 10.3791/54802.
Robotic odor source localization has been a challenging area and one to which biological knowledge has been expected to contribute, as finding odor sources is an essential task for organism survival. Insects are well-studied organisms with regard to odor tracking, and their behavioral strategies have been applied to mobile robots for evaluation. This "bottom-up" approach is a fundamental way to develop biomimetic robots; however, the biological analyses and the modeling of behavioral mechanisms are still ongoing. Therefore, it is still unknown how such a biological system actually works as the controller of a robotic platform. To answer this question, we have developed an insect-controlled robot in which a male adult silkmoth (Bombyx mori) drives a robot car in response to odor stimuli; this can be regarded as a prototype of a future insect-mimetic robot. In the cockpit of the robot, a tethered silkmoth walked on an air-supported ball and an optical sensor measured the ball rotations. These rotations were translated into the movement of the two-wheeled robot. The advantage of this "hybrid" approach is that experimenters can manipulate any parameter of the robot, which enables the evaluation of the odor-tracking capability of insects and provides useful suggestions for robotic odor-tracking. Furthermore, these manipulations are non-invasive ways to alter the sensory-motor relationship of a pilot insect and will be a useful technique for understanding adaptive behaviors.
机器人气味源定位一直是一个具有挑战性的领域，人们期望生物学知识能为该领域做出贡献，因为寻找气味源是生物体生存的一项基本任务。昆虫在气味追踪方面是经过充分研究的生物体，它们的行为策略已被应用于移动机器人进行评估。这种“自下而上”的方法是开发仿生机器人的一种基本方式；然而，生物学分析和行为机制建模仍在进行中。因此，这样一个生物系统作为机器人平台的控制器实际是如何工作的仍然未知。为了回答这个问题，我们开发了一种由昆虫控制的机器人，其中雄性成年家蚕（Bombyx mori）响应气味刺激驱动一辆机器人汽车；这可以被视为未来仿昆虫机器人的一个原型。在机器人的驾驶舱内，一只系留的家蚕在一个空气支撑的球上行走，一个光学传感器测量球的旋转。这些旋转被转化为两轮机器人的运动。这种“混合”方法的优点是实验者可以操纵机器人的任何参数，这使得能够评估昆虫的气味追踪能力，并为机器人气味追踪提供有用的建议。此外，这些操纵是以非侵入性的方式改变实验昆虫的感觉运动关系，将是理解适应性行为的一种有用技术。
