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Published December 1, 2017 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Pigeons (C. livia) Follow Their Head during Turning Flight: Head Stabilization Underlies the Visual Control of Flight

Abstract

Similar flight control principles operate across insect and vertebrate fliers. These principles indicate that robust solutions have evolved to meet complex behavioral challenges. Following from studies of visual and cervical feedback control of flight in insects, we investigate the role of head stabilization in providing feedback cues for controlling turning flight in pigeons. Based on previous observations that the eyes of pigeons remain at relatively fixed orientations within the head during flight, we test potential sensory control inputs derived from head and body movements during 90° aerial turns. We observe that periods of angular head stabilization alternate with rapid head repositioning movements (head saccades), and confirm that control of head motion is decoupled from aerodynamic and inertial forces acting on the bird's continuously rotating body during turning flapping flight. Visual cues inferred from head saccades correlate with changes in flight trajectory; whereas the magnitude of neck bending predicts angular changes in body position. The control of head motion to stabilize a pigeon's gaze may therefore facilitate extraction of important motion cues, in addition to offering mechanisms for controlling body and wing movements. Strong similarities between the sensory flight control of birds and insects may also inspire novel designs of robust controllers for human-engineered autonomous aerial vehicles.

Additional Information

© 2017 Ros and Biewener. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Received: 26 July 2017; Accepted: 09 November 2017; Published: 01 December 2017. Author Contributions: IR and AB: designed and performed research; IR: analyzed data; IR and AB: wrote the paper; AB: provided funding. Funding: This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (IOS-0744056) and the Office of Naval Research (N0014-10-1-0951) to AB. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. We are grateful to Profs. A. N. Ahn and B. P. Ölveczky for their valuable comments on the manuscript. We further thank P. A. Ramirez for care of the animals, Prof. S. A. Combes for use of high speed cameras, Drs. A. M. Berg Robertson and M. E. de Boef Miara for help with experiments, Profs. D. V. Lee and R. L. Tedrake for general suggestions, and R. J. Ros for additional assistance.

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Published - fnins-11-00655.pdf

Supplemental Material - table_1.pdf

Supplemental Material - video_1.mp4

Supplemental Material - video_2.mov

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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023