FREQUENCY DOMAIN CHARACTERIZATION OF OPTIC FLOW AND VISION-BASED OCELLAR SENSING FOR ROTATIONAL MOTION

The structure of an animal’s eye is determined by the tasks it must perform. While vertebrates rely on their two eyes for all visual functions, insects have evolved a wide range of specialized visual organs to support behaviors such as prey capture, predator evasion, mate pursuit, flight stabilization, and navigation. Compound eyes and ocelli constitute the vision forming and sensing mechanisms of some flying insects. They provide signals useful for flight stabilization and navigation. In contrast to the well-studied compound eye, the ocelli, seen as the second visual system, sense fast luminance changes and allows for fast visual processing. Using a luminance-based sensor that mimics the insect ocelli and a camera-based motion detection system, a frequency-domain characterization of an ocellar sensor and optic flow (due to rotational motion) are analyzed. Inspired by the insect neurons that make use of signals from both vision sensing mechanisms, advantages, disadvantages and complementary properties of ocellar and optic flow estimates are discussed.