Bio-inspired optical flow circuits for the visual guidance of micro air vehicles

In the framework of our research on biologically inspired microrobotics, we have developed a visually based autopilot for micro air vehicles (MAV), which we have called OCTAVE (optical altitude control system for autonomous vehicles). Here, we show the feasibility of a joint altitude and speed control system based on a low complexity optronic velocity sensor that estimates the optic flow in the downward direction. This velocity sensor draws on electrophysiological findings of on the fly elementary motion detectors (EMDs) obtained at our laboratory. We built an elementary, 100-gram tethered helicopter system that carries out terrain following above a randomly textured ground. The overall processing system is light enough to be mounted on-board MAVs with an avionic payload of only some grams.