Flight control in fruit flies

ulm

The research project had two distinct parts. The first part focused on the effect of artificially changing a physical parameter – the damping coefficient – for stabilisation and tracking performance in tethered flies flying in closed-loop in a flight arena as well as developing a physics model for incorporating real world physics into the flight arena and a mathematical model for estimating the damping coefficient of free flying flies. The second part employed the developed physics model to investigate the amount of passive visuo-motor learning in wildtype and memory deficit mutant fruit flies by training tethered flies to fixate a stripe in closed-loop at different damping coefficient and then subsequently test their response to an open-loop rotating stripe as well as comparing flight behaviour between experienced flies and naïve flies (which had never flown before) in both free and tethered flight situations.

Links:
BioFuture Research Group
Department of Neurobiology. University of Ulm

Publications:

Hesselberg, T. and Lehmann, F.-O. (2009). The role of experience in flight behaviour of Drosophila. Journal of Experimental Biology. 212: 3377-3386.
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.025221

Hesselberg, T. (2009). Sensors and control systems for micro-air vehicles: lessons from flies. Sensor Review, 29: 120-126.
DOI: 10.1108/02602280910936228

Hesselberg, T. and Lehmann, F.-O. (2007). Turning behaviour depends on frictional damping in the fruit fly Drosophila. Journal of Experimental Biology, 210: 3419-3434.
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.010389

Further materials:

Hesselberg, T., Heymann, N. and Lehmann, F.-O. 2007. Constraints and learning in the visuo-motor system of Drosophila: Inspiration for flight control in micro-air vehicles. Poster for a Bionic Meeting. View as PDF

Video of a fruit fly flying in the flight simulator. View avi video