Aircraft Landing System Inspired By Bees: A University of Queensland Research

A team of researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland have developed a new landing mechanism for aircrafts inspired from bees. The system is entirely autonomous and can never be hacked. The reason why the team sought inspiration from bees is because bees use the principle of optic flow for descent. This means they use the rate of motion beneath them to navigate to the landing spot. Bees also tend to use both of their eyes i.e. stereo vision for the actual landing. In their experiment they mounted cameras to the front of an aircraft with a two meter wingspan. The aircraft then used the visual cues from the system to perform all the operations needed for a safe touchdown. This autonomous system helped the plane control its speed, altitude and direction during landing.


Conventional auto-pilot systems aboard planes use GPS signals, radio beacons or laser-range sensors which are susceptible to hacking but the system developed by the University of Queensland researchers is immune to these threats because it is independent of the aforementioned technologies. When it comes to the question of its reliability the team lead Saul Thurrowgood says that they have successfully tested the system but just in case it fails most commercial aircrafts have a backup system to fall back on. He tries to highlight the fact that it is a sensor system more than an auto-pilot like system.

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