Pigeons To Guide New Autopilot Technologies

Humans have always mimicked nature may be in robotics or Avionics or in any other field where he has tackled any difficulty, he has looked towards nature. Scientists trying to research on upgrading the Autopilot in an aircraft have got a technical background from the creatures created by none other than Mother Nature. Harvard scientists have been trying to study the possible designs for the system control of Auto pilots used in Aircrafts. Scientists believe that the same techniques for designing the autopilot can also be used for robotics and in many diverse fields.

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Camera as seen from back of a pigeon about to take a flight

The research team led by Prof. Dr. Huai-Ti Lin from Harvard University has tried to find out the method which birds follow during their flight. For the experiment, the team created an artificial environment ‘Forest’ for studying the flight behavior of birds during flight. The birds were fitted with cameras for a close inspection of their movements and their vision movements. In the study one of the key findings was that the birds head in exactly a straight line when in forest. This helps them to save much of their energy. It is a pretty established fact that it consumes more energy while moving in a zigzag direction. The other result which the scientists could not help noticing was the movement of pigeon. Pigeons when exiting the artificially created forest headed in the same direction as when they entered it.

Scientists chose pigeons for this experiment because they felt that the pigeons having a 300^o visions would be beneficial for conducting this experiment. The scientists also found it possible to monitor those birds and their flight by attaching cameras on both sides.

The Harvard researchers feel that their findings will have a deep impact on the human understanding of auto-piloting technology. For example, we will now be able to design some very advanced unmanned aircrafts, prototypes first. They may be fed just the required data i.e.; the co-ordinates. This is not the first such experiment done involving living animals/birds. Several other gigantic machines owe their origins to these gentle creatures. The Harvard scientists have presented this research in Society for Experimental Biology annual conference held in Glasgow on July 1.

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