Insect cinema? Why scientists make little 3D glasses for praying mantises
How do you take the next steps in robot vision?聽Take a praying mantis to the movies.
This week 听颈苍 Scientific Reports by a聽Newcastle University聽research team confirms聽that the praying mantis, despite its tiny brain, relies on 3D vision, or stereopsis. Study leader , "despite their minute brains, mantises are sophisticated visual hunters which can capture prey with terrifying efficiency. We can learn a lot by studying how they perceive the world."
Old-fashioned 3D glasses designed for people rely on red and blue lenses, but because red light is poorly visible to mantises, researchers used blue and green lenses, Ghaith Tarawneh, a research associate on the Newcastle team,聽explains in an interview.
鈥淭hen we place the mantis in like a cinema [a platform in front of a computer screen] where they look at these images that are flat, but with the glasses and are striking at the screen,鈥� says Dr. Tarawneh. 鈥淪o we fooled mantis into thinking there is a bug close to them when it is really far away on the screen. If聽it strikes聽we know it perceives this thing to be close to it.鈥�
To conduct the study, researchers constructed a聽specially-designed 鈥渋nsect cinema,鈥� complete with itty-bitty 3D glasses, attached with beeswax.
鈥淵ou would not want to use glue on an insect,鈥� says Tarawneh. 鈥淢y colleague, [Dr. Vivek Nityananda] crafts these 3D cinema glasses and then attaches them to mantis head using beeswax. It allows the glasses to be easily removed and to make them comfy.鈥�
How is this useful for robotics?
Building more capable聽autonomous robots聽is a goal for many companies and industries around the world, from聽聽taking over jobs too dangerous for humans to perform, to聽Nadine the social android聽robot. Robots' ability to quickly see where they're going is key.
鈥淲ell, 3D vision has loads of applications, like robot navigation,鈥� Tarawneh聽explains. 鈥淩obots rely on getting information from the environments. You want the robot to understand somehow its environment and perhaps move towards particular goals and it needs some sort of understanding of the environment based on visual input.鈥�
The confirmation that mantises are able to make sophisticated depth calculations with their relatively tiny brains for 3D depth perception in computers with further research.聽
鈥淥f course all of this data and observations is to understand how their brains work 鈥� and then how our own brains work 鈥� and then map this technology for robotics. The mantis like it and we, of course, as scientists like it because it helps us understand what鈥檚 going on,鈥澛燭arawneh says.
