Direction-Specific Footpaths Can Be Predicted by the Motion of a Single Point on the Body of the Fruit Fly Drosophila Melanogaster

摘要

This work presents a probabilistic mathematical model for generating footpaths in an insect's frame of reference, based on its body's (i.e. thorax's) motion in the ground frame of reference. This model uses digitized video data of fruit flies walking freely on a transparent surface to track the location of each foot and the motion of the body while in stance phase. We use this data to tune a rigid body kinematic model that predicts the motion of the feet, given the body's motion. The result is a model that can be used to study other aspects of insect locomotion, or used to generate stepping motions for an insect-like robot.