Harnessing blowflies to teach robots how to see
Scientists are using a fly 'flight simulator' to understand how a blowfly can process visual information so quickly (Image: MPI Neurobiology)
Article Summary
One of the biggest challenges facing robotics is teaching machines to perceive surroundings and make sense of what they see. Attempting to duplicate the complexity of human perception is next to impossible, so researchers at Cognition for Technical Systems (CoTeSys) in Munich are, instead, studying how blowflies process images using a 'flight simulator'. Despite having a brain the size of a pinhead, a fly can process and interpret 100 discrete images per second – four times better than humans.
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