[BITList] If only drone aircraft had belligerent bee brains

[John Feltham]

If only drone aircraft had belligerent bee brains
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Leigh Dayton, Science writer | January 09, 2009

Article from: The Australian
IT took six months but finally Australian scientists found a hive of  
Queensland honeybees aggressive enough to mimic a heat-seeking missile.

It is all part of a project to discover the tactics bees use to  
detect, track and intercept moving targets. It's something bees do  
well and unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles cannot do, despite the  
best efforts of overseas military researchers.

"We didn't realise that Queensland would have such peaceful bees,"  
said team leader, neuroscientist and engineer Mandyam Srinivasan.

"That wasn't a problem when I worked in the ACT," said Professor  
Srinivasan, of Queensland University's Queensland Brain Institute and  
the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Vision Science.

His work is funded primarily by the US military, with some Queensland  
state support.

He predicted that within three or four years the team will have  
developed a drone aircraft able to detect and track a moving target  
such as a truck or missile. The target detection and tracking work  
could also be applied to mid-air collision avoidance systems for  
civilian aircraft.

After suitable prodding, the belligerent bees revealed basic  
strategies, said research technician Eliza Middleton.

"Their response in the first minute is phenomenal. They'll go after  
anything, sting anything, but then they're more discriminatory about  
what they go after and what they see as their target," she said.

According to Professor Srinivasan, the bees appear to adopt different  
strategies -- adaptive or predictive -- for different targets.

Using adjustable targets, high-speed stereo cameras and three- 
dimensional computer reconstructions, the project has found that  
foraging bees track moving food sources -- such as swaying flowers --  
by adjusting their trajectory and speed on approach. They land gently.

Follow-up studies set to begin next week should help reveal details  
about the mechanism of the predictive strategy that bees use when they  
are angry. Here, the bees set their trajectory and speed according to  
where they calculate the target will be when they intercept it.

"In contrast to when landing on a flower softly and carefully, they go  
smack-bang into the target and won't slow down," said Professor  
Srinivasan.

"They smack into the target but avoid smacking into other objects,  
like their fellow bees. They have two things in their head and we  
don't know how they do it."

Professor Srinivasan estimated that he would soon have enough data to  
begin building a mathematical model of the bees' pursuit strategy.

That would enable him to create computer programs for the onboard  
cameras and analysis systems needed to build bee brains into mindless  
military drones.

ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.



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