New research published in IOP Publishing's Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, describes how the researchers from the Center of Excellence 'Cognitive Interaction Technology' at Bielefeld University, Germany, have built an artificial bee eye, complete with fully functional camera, to shed light on the insects' complex sensing, processing and navigational skills.

Consisting of a light-weight mirror-lens combination attached to a USB video camera, the artificial eye manages to achieve a field of vision comparable to that of a bee.

In combining a curved reflective surface that is built into acrylic glass with lenses covering the frontal field, the bee eye camera has allowed the researchers to take unique images showing the world from an insect's viewpoint.

In the future, the researchers hope to include UV to fully reflect a bee's colour vision, which is important to honeybees for flower recognition and discrimination and also polarisation vision, which bees use for orientation. They also hope to incorporate models of the subsequent neural processing stages.

As the researchers write, "Despite the discussed limitations of our model of the spatial resolution of the honeybees compound eyes, we are confident that it is useful for many purposes, e.g. for the simulation of bee-like agents in virtual environments and, in combination with presented imaging system, for testing bee-inspired visual navigation strategies on mobile robots."

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Institute of Physics
The Flowers and Fruits of Earth

Buoys To Measure Air And Sea Interactions In Typhoons Launched Islamic charities versus the US in battle for Pakistan aid UN to launch appeal as Pakistan flood disaster deepens China gold mine fire kills 16 workers Safer Plastics That Lock In Potentially Harmful Plasticizers Better Displays Ahead Chinese 'peel' widget converts Apple Touch to phone: report Inauguration Of First DLR Ground Station In Canada China begins moving 330,000 people for water project First Satellite Measurement Of Water Volume In Amazon Floodplain Ancient Blob-Like Creature Of The Deep Obama to serve Gulf seafood at birthday bash: aide Arctic ice island poses no immediate threat, says discoverer 'City-sized' ice island breaks off glacier Ice drilling could foretell climate Ice-Free Arctic Ocean May Not Be Of Much Use In Soaking Up Carbon Dioxide Russian drought devours world wheat supplies: US Bread prices soar in drought-hit Russia New Zealand dairy backs product in China hormone scandal Global warming threatens Asian rice production: study Deadly Typhoon Dianmu cuts across Japan Terrified trekkers recount flood 'hell' in Indian Himalayas Ramadan misery for Pakistan flood victims Under-fire Zardari visits Pakistan flood victims Mugabe thanks China for steadfast support Mugabe urges army to 'jealously guard' Zimbabwe's resources Kagame set for landslide in Rwandan presidential vote Blood diamonds, a warlord and a supermodel The Worst Impact Of Climate Change May Be How Humanity Reacts To It Stone tools used by earliest 'butchers' Reading The Zip Codes Of 3,500-Year-Old Letters Internet lifestyles leave digital estates for descendants