Fly-by-fly to replace Fly-by-wire
Fly-brain program flies copter
by Yomiuri Shimbun
"Researchers at the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research in Wako, Saitama Prefecture, have succeeded in operating a radio-controlled model helicopter using a computer program modeled on a fly's brain, an official of the institute announced Wednesday.
The research may enable the development of a program able to process data in a similar way to a human brain, the researchers said.
The institute's Laboratory for Brain-operative Devices was responsible for developing the program, which was based on a fly's optic nerve system. A fly uses 16 vector variables, including forward, back, right, left and inclination to adjust its position in flight.
The program calculates the helicopter's position, speed and inclination every 0.03 seconds, while a small high-performance camera records the positions of a red point and a green point on the helicopter's body. The program then adjusts the helicopter's position in the air and its motor's output.
The basic control system is preprogrammed in the computer, but it can also learn and master new controls. Though a human beginner can make a model helicopter hover for only a few seconds, even after undergoing 10 hours of training, the computer managed the difficult operation with ease."