School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Department of Coastal and Marine Systems Science, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Jun 13;13(6):e0198422. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198422. eCollection 2018.
Some female moths attract male moths by emitting series of pulses of pheromone filaments propagating downwind. The turbulent nature of the wind creates a complex flow environment, and causes the filaments to propagate in the form of patches with varying concentration distributions. Inspired by moth navigation capabilities, we propose a navigation strategy that enables a flier to locate an upwind pulsating odor source in a windy environment using a single threshold-based detection sensor. This optomotor anemotaxis strategy is constructed based on the physical properties of the turbulent flow carrying discrete puffs of odor and does not involve learning, memory, complex decision making or statistical methods. We suggest that in turbulent plumes from a pulsating point source, an instantaneously measurable quantity referred as a "puff crossing time", improves the success rate as compared to the navigation strategies based on temporally regular zigzags due to intermittent contact, or an "internal counter", that do not use this information. Using computer simulations of fliers navigating in turbulent plumes of the pulsating point source for varying flow parameters such as turbulent intensities, plume meandering and wind gusts, we obtained statistics of navigation paths towards the pheromone sources. We quantified the probability of a successful navigation as well as the flight parameters such as the time spent searching and the total flight time, with respect to different turbulent intensities, meandering or gusts. The concepts learned using this model may help to design odor-based navigation of miniature airborne autonomous vehicles.
一些雌性飞蛾通过向下风向释放一连串的信息素细丝脉冲来吸引雄性飞蛾。风的湍流性质会产生复杂的流动环境，导致细丝以具有不同浓度分布的斑块形式传播。受飞蛾导航能力的启发，我们提出了一种导航策略，使飞行器能够在有风的环境中使用单个基于阈值的检测传感器定位向上风向脉动的气味源。这种基于运动感觉的气流导向策略是基于携带离散气味团的湍流的物理特性构建的，不涉及学习、记忆、复杂决策或统计方法。我们认为，在从脉动点源散发的湍流羽流中，一个瞬间可测量的量，即“脉冲穿越时间”，与基于间歇性接触的时空规则之字形导航策略相比，或者与不使用此信息的“内部计数器”相比，可提高导航成功率。我们通过对在脉动点源的湍流羽流中导航的飞行器进行计算机模拟，针对不同的流动参数，如湍流强度、羽流弯曲和阵风，获得了朝向信息素源的导航路径的统计数据。我们根据不同的湍流强度、弯曲或阵风，量化了成功导航的概率以及搜索时间和总飞行时间等飞行参数。使用此模型学到的概念可能有助于设计基于气味的微型机载自主飞行器的导航。
