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Abstract
Honeybees foraging and recruiting nest-mates by performing the waggle dance need to be able to gauge the flight distance to the food source regardless of the wind and terrain conditions. Previous authors have hypothesized that the foragers’ visual odometer mathematically integrates the angular velocity of the ground image sweeping backward across their ventral viewfield, known as translational optic flow. The question arises as to how mathematical integration of optic flow (usually expressed in radians/s) can reliably encode distances, regardless of the height and speed of flight. The vertical self-oscillatory movements observed in honeybees trigger expansions and contractions of the optic flow vector field, yielding an additional visual cue called optic flow divergence. We have developed a self-scaled model for the visual odometer in which the translational optic flow is scaled by the visually estimated current clearance from the ground. In simulation, this model, which we have called SOFIa, was found to be reliable in a large range of flight trajectories, terrains and wind conditions. It reduced the statistical dispersion of the estimated flight distances approximately 10-fold in comparison with the mathematically integrated raw optic flow model. The SOFIa model can be directly implemented in robotic applications based on minimalistic visual equipment.
Highlights
It was reported in 1967 by von Frisch [1] that honeybees perform the waggle dance to convey relevant information about the distance from the hive to a food source and the direction of the corresponding flight trajectory
The new model for the honeybee’s visual odometer called SOFIa presented in this study was based on biologically plausible optic flow cues. This reliable bio-plausible visual odometer can be used to assess the flight distance based on two different characteristics of the ventral vector field of the optic flow, while at the same time accounting for honeybees’ visual odometric performances
We have presented the results obtained on simulated honeybees flying over a virtual open field, possibly in the presence of landforms
Summary
It was reported in 1967 by von Frisch [1] that honeybees perform the waggle dance to convey relevant information about the distance from the hive to a food source and the direction of the corresponding flight trajectory. The nestmates extract the relevant distance and direction information from the waggle dance and use it to find the food source themselves. It has not yet been established exactly how foragers assess the flight distance. Recent findings have suggested that this ‘energy hypothesis’ does not account for the honeybees’ odometer, at least not in the case of medium distances of a few hundred metres [3]. Several authors have established that in this case, the honeybees’ odometer relies on visual cues [4,5,6,7,8], especially the optic flow [9] (see [10] for a review)
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