Abstract
Some female moths attract male moths by emitting series of pulses of pheromone filaments propagating downwind. The turbulent nature of the wind creates a complex flow environment, and causes the filaments to propagate in the form of patches with varying concentration distributions. Inspired by moth navigation capabilities, we propose a navigation strategy that enables a flier to locate an upwind pulsating odor source in a windy environment using a single threshold-based detection sensor. This optomotor anemotaxis strategy is constructed based on the physical properties of the turbulent flow carrying discrete puffs of odor and does not involve learning, memory, complex decision making or statistical methods. We suggest that in turbulent plumes from a pulsating point source, an instantaneously measurable quantity referred as a “puff crossing time”, improves the success rate as compared to the navigation strategies based on temporally regular zigzags due to intermittent contact, or an “internal counter”, that do not use this information. Using computer simulations of fliers navigating in turbulent plumes of the pulsating point source for varying flow parameters such as turbulent intensities, plume meandering and wind gusts, we obtained statistics of navigation paths towards the pheromone sources. We quantified the probability of a successful navigation as well as the flight parameters such as the time spent searching and the total flight time, with respect to different turbulent intensities, meandering or gusts. The concepts learned using this model may help to design odor-based navigation of miniature airborne autonomous vehicles.
Highlights
Female arctiid moths have been shown to release pulsed pheromone signals to attract male moths [1, 2] whereas various species of moths have been shown to perceive pulsed pheromone signals [3,4,5,6,7,8]
In this study we have developed a bio-inspired algorithm for the navigation of a self-propelled flier towards a pulsating source of a scalar, convected in a turbulent flow
We built the model based on the physics of a plume from a pulsating source, in which the size and distance between the puffs are related to each other through properties of a turbulent flow
Summary
Female arctiid moths have been shown to release pulsed pheromone signals to attract male moths [1, 2] whereas various species of moths have been shown to perceive pulsed pheromone signals [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Successful mating requires the male moth to find the female within a time constraint, i.e. before the female stops emitting the pheromone and before other males find her. It is known that male moths can reach conspecific females from a long distance, overcoming obstacles such as forests or canopies [9, 10]. Moths sense the pheromone via chemo-receptors on their antennae [11,12,13]. If the chemical structure of the pheromone triggers the olfactory receptors in the moth antennae and is judged to be a sufficiently high quality signal [14, 15], the male will than navigate towards the female. The male moth has to follow the pheromone cue which is subjected to windy environment and under various turbulent conditions
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