title: Embodied linearity of speed control in Drosophila melanogaster.
abstract: Fruitflies regulate flight speed by adjusting their body angle. To understand how low-level posture control serves an overall linear visual speed control strategy, we visually induced free-flight acceleration responses in a wind tunnel and measured the body kinematics using high-speed videography. Subsequently, we reverse engineered the transfer function mapping body pitch angle onto flight speed. A linear model is able to reproduce the behavioural data with good accuracy. Our results show that linearity in speed control is realized already at the level of body posture-mediated speed control and is therefore embodied at the level of the complex aerodynamic mechanisms of body and wings. Together with previous results, this study reveals the existence of a linear hierarchical control strategy, which can provide relevant control principles for biomimetic implementations, such as autonomous flying micro air vehicles.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland. vasco@ini.phys.ethz.ch
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Medici
authors.forename: S N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Fry
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005426:Flight, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D014741:Video Recording