Insect eyes will look at a man on Mars

An aircraft with the weight of a chocolate bar might someday move quickly on the surface of Mars with the agility of a dragonfly and the vision of a bee.
A group of Australian scientists says it has developed equipment for navigation and flight control based on research conducted in several types of insects. The resulting sensors are so small they can be placed in "microaeronaves" which only weigh about 75 grams.

The team of researchers from the National University of Australia beat NASA in a test flight of a prototype last week, and the U.S. space agency agreed to help finance future work.
The aim is to use technology in a mission in 2007 to explore the red planet for rocky structure of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system, with more than 3,000 kilometers long and eight kilometers deep.

"Despite their small brains, insects such as dragonflies are capable of rapid and precise aerial maneuvers that require stability and avoid collisions, said Tuesday Javaan Singh Chahl, Lab Vision Biorrobótica of the university. The enormous structures as Valles Marineris, more than 10 times the Canyon of Colorado in all its dimensions, can only be observed from inside. An aircraft should do. "

Scientists have developed a model electronic ocelli, each eye is a simple compound eye of insects, dragonflies, bees, grasshoppers.The ocelli measured the distribution of ultraviolet and green light to maintain flight level, a response to the problem of stable flight in the atmosphere of Mars ultraleve.

Scientists also programmed computers to avoid collisions, like bees to use the apparent speed of objects to determine distance.
A swarm of miniaeronaves
"The ocelli must weigh no more than a few hundred milligrams, and the sensor to avoid collisions could weigh about five grams," said Chahl. These small sensors allow many small aircraft as light as about 75 grams, to be transported the surface of Mars. "
The bees could also provide a solution to the navigation on Mars, where there is no magnetic field. The bees use a combination of polarized patterns in the sky, sites used as signals and the distance traveled to navigate.

Chahl said they expected to include a navigation sensor operation in its next test model, scheduled for 2003, with a final test of its miniature aircraft to be held next year. NASA's contribution will be $ 310,000. But the project already has funding from the Australian Defense Organization for Science and Technology (DSTO in English), who gave the initial funds in 1996, and the U.S. Agency for Defense and Advanced Research (in English DARPA), which began to contribute to mid-1999.
Chahl said propulsion mechanisms and platforms for microaeronaves were developed by NASA.