French and British researchers are working on a new ant-inspired navigational system that could prove to be more accurate and reliable than current GPS devices.
Since its launch during the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Global Positioning System has helped many people around the world have a better understanding of their location. Users can use their GPS-capable devices to get a read of almost anywhere they are on the planet.
The key lies in the ability of government-operated satellites in orbit to pinpoint where people or objects are exactly on Earth and relay the information quickly to users.
However, much like other works of human engineering, GPS has its own fair share of shortcomings.
Similar to other satellite-based navigation systems, such as Galileo by the European Union and GLONASS by Russia, the United States's GPS heavily relies on signals from space.
If a large enough object gets in the way between satellites and GPS devices, the system will not be able to get a good read of the location. It becomes virtually inoperable under such circumstances.
This might cause the occasional headache for ordinary people, but for those working as first responders or in search-and-rescue missions, it could become a matter of life and death.
Despite its proven benefits, the GPS cannot be the only thing people can rely on for navigation. Two separate studies in France and the United Kingdom are exploring insect-based technologies to come up with viable alternatives to the GPS.
AntBot, The Autonomous Robot
Engineer Julien Dupeyroux and his colleagues at the Aix-Marseille University in the French region of Provence have developed an ant-inspired robot capable of navigating its own way through a course.
AntBot, as the autonomous robot has been dubbed by the team, makes use of different onboard sensors much like how real desert ants use their insect vision to find their way across great distances.
"Desert ants can walk up to one kilometer (0.6 miles) within 30 minutes, and they can return to the entrance of their nest without risk of getting lost," Dupeyroux told Digital Trends. "We wanted to investigate how to make this kind of navigation work in robots."
Dupeyroux and his colleagues teamed up with the French National Center for Scientific Research to develop AntBot. The robot takes advantage of its built-in UV light sensors to detect bands of polarized light in its environment.
This helps AntBot get a read of where it is and where it needs to go, just like how early mariners used celestial compasses.
Dupeyroux said desert ants use celestial, patterned light to understand their orientation. When sunlight enters the Earth's atmosphere, it often gets scattered and produces specific patterns of polarization.
These scattered lights are symmetric when compared to the location of the sun, which is why ants can use them to get their orientation while navigating.
Aside from using its light sensors, AntBot can also measure the number of steps it has already taken to determine its movement rate relative to where the sun is.
Both of these systems allow the autonomous robot to know exactly where it is, with an accuracy of up to 1 cm per 14 m based on the distance it has traveled. By comparison, a typically civilian GPS system's accuracy is only about 5 m.
Dupeyroux believes AntBot's navigation system can also be used as onboard compasses for vehicles and even delivery drones.
The findings of the Aix-Marseille University study are featured in the journal Science Robotics.
The Sussex System For Navigation
Meanwhile, across the pond from France, scientists at the University of Sussex in the UK are developing their own ant-inspired way of navigation. The Sussex system makes use of computer algorithms to mimic how the brain of desert ants work.
If the Aix-Marseille University's AntBot combines its celestial compass with counting steps as a sort of path integration, the Sussex system depends on visual navigation.
Roboticist Andy Philippides and his team examined how desert ants tend to stop and scan their surroundings whenever they travel beyond their nest. They believe this is the insects' way of getting distinct snapshots of the world around them to let them know exactly where they are and which path they should take.
This natural navigation system allows desert ants to find their way back to their nests in a manner similar to a bread-crumb trail. The researchers call the insects' ability as "familiarity-based navigation."
Philippides explained that ants may be able to collect visual information of a particular route as it appears to them during the first time they traverse it. If the insects get anywhere near this route on their way back, they would try to orient themselves until things become familiar to them.
The researchers used their findings to create a machine learning program. They then integrated the system into a robot capable of using snapshots to find its way along a path.
