Visual Navigation in a Robot Using Zig-Zag Behavior

Srinivasan and Zhang (1993) describe behavioral evidence for two distinct movement detecting systems in bee: (1) A direction selective pathway with low frequency response characteristics serving the optomotor response and (2) A non-direction selective movement system with higher frequency response serving functions of obstacle avoidance and the ‘tunnel centering’ response where the animal seeks a flight path along the centerline of a narrow corridor. Recently, this parallel movement detector view has received support from anatomical evidence in fly (Douglass and Strausfeld, 1996). We are concerned here with the implications of using non-direction selective movement detectors for tasks such as obstacle avoidance.