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Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems

Living Machines 2019: Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems pp 76–87Cite as

MiniBee: A Minature MAV for the Biomimetic Embodiment of Insect Brain Models

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 11556))

Abstract

Flying insects embody many properties that are desirable for Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) including agile flight, low weight, small size, and low energy consumption. Research into embodiment of insect brain models therefore provides a clear avenue for improving the capabilities of MAVs. Here the MiniBee is presented - an open source quadrotor platform design to facilitate such research. The final design exceeds the design requirements, weighting 200 g with a hover flight time of 7 min. The platform provides panoramic vision with onboard remapping and stabilisation, which can reproduce the visual field of the honeybee or other insects. Visual information and control signals are robustly transmitted wirelessly to a ground station for integration with insect brain models.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Vicon Motion Tracking System, https://www.vicon.com/.

  2. 2.

    https://www.tomlawton.com/bubblescope.

  3. 3.

    eCalc https://www.ecalc.ch/.

  4. 4.

    BetaFlight https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight.

  5. 5.

    Blender https://www.blender.org/.

  6. 6.

    Mojo3D https://www.stratasys.com/.

  7. 7.

    Camera footage https://youtu.be/SLpMH2qa98o.

  8. 8.

    Minibee footage http://brainsonboard.co.uk/2018/10/26/introducing-the-minibee-v1/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S1 2TN, England

    Alex J. Cope, Ali Ahmed, Fadl Isa & James A. R. Marshall

Authors
  1. Alex J. Cope
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  2. Ali Ahmed
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  3. Fadl Isa
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  4. James A. R. Marshall
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alex J. Cope .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Uriel Martinez-Hernandez

  2. SPECS, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

    Vasiliki Vouloutsi

  3. SPECS, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

    Anna Mura

  4. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Michael Mangan

  5. Osaka University, Suita, Japan

    Minoru Asada

  6. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Tony J. Prescott

  7. SPECS, ICREA, BIST, Barcelona, Spain

    Paul F.M.J. Verschure

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Cope, A.J., Ahmed, A., Isa, F., Marshall, J.A.R. (2019). MiniBee: A Minature MAV for the Biomimetic Embodiment of Insect Brain Models. In: Martinez-Hernandez, U., et al. Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11556. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24741-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24741-6_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24740-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24741-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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