title: Insect-controlled Robot: A Mobile Robot Platform to Evaluate the Odor-tracking Capability of an Insect.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo; ando@brain.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Noriyasu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo.
authors.forename: Shuhei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Emoto
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo.
authors.forename: Ryohei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kanzaki
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D032701:Biomimetics; D012831:Bombyx / Q000502:physiology*; D002633:Chemotaxis / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D009812:Odorants / Q000032:analysis; D012371:Robotics; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology