Caltech researchers uncover a mechanism for how fruit flies
regulate their flight speed, using both vision and wind-sensing information
from their antennae.
Due to its well-studied genome and small size, the humble
fruit fly has been used as a model to study hundreds of human health issues
ranging from Alzheimer's to obesity. However, Michael Dickinson, Esther M. and
Abe M. Zarem Professor of Bioengineering at Caltech, is more interested in the
flies themselves—and how such tiny insects are capable of something we humans
can only dream of: autonomous flight. In a report on a recent study that
combined bursts of air, digital video cameras, and a variety of software and
sensors, Dickinson and his team explain a mechanism for the insect's
"cruise control" in flight—revealing a relationship between a fly's
vision and its wind-sensing antennae.