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Obstacle-Avoidance Navigation by an Autonomous Vehicle Inspired by a Bat Biosonar Strategy

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Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems (Living Machines 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9222))

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Abstract

An autonomous vehicle controlled using real-time obstacle-avoidance algorithms and ultrasound was constructed to understand the active sensing system of the bat. The vehicle was designed to mimic bat behavior in which 1) the outgoing pulse was emitted toward the obstacle detected by the previous echo (obstacle aiming) and 2) the interpulse interval was adjusted using the distance to the detected object. As a result, the obstacle-aiming system facilitated obstacle avoidance by keeping the obstacle in the center of the beam sight of the vehicle.

Behavioral experiments involving a bat avoiding obstacles demonstrated that the bat responds to multiple echoes and then decides the direction of the next outgoing pulse. Based on this behavior, a multi-object-detection navigation system was proposed to enable a vehicle to move in more complicated space that it failed to navigate previously. Our findings suggest that the bat behavioral strategies provide new perspectives for engineering involving simple sensing.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, 610-0321, Japan

    Yasufumi Yamada, Arie Oka, Shinichi Tateiwa, Tetsuo Ohta, Shizuko Hiryu & Yoshiaki Watanabe

  2. Faculty of science, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Kentaro Ito & Ryo Kobayashi

  3. JST, PRESTO, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan

    Shizuko Hiryu

Authors
  1. Yasufumi Yamada
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  2. Kentaro Ito
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  3. Arie Oka
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  4. Shinichi Tateiwa
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  5. Tetsuo Ohta
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  6. Ryo Kobayashi
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  7. Shizuko Hiryu
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  8. Yoshiaki Watanabe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shizuko Hiryu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Stuart P. Wilson

  2. Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Paul F.M.J. Verschure

  3. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Anna Mura

  4. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Tony J. Prescott

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Yamada, Y. et al. (2015). Obstacle-Avoidance Navigation by an Autonomous Vehicle Inspired by a Bat Biosonar Strategy. In: Wilson, S., Verschure, P., Mura, A., Prescott, T. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9222. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22979-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22979-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22978-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22979-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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