Control at beyond-visual ranges is of great significance to animal-robots with wide range motion capability. For pigeon-robots, such control can be done by the way of onboard preprogram, but not constitute a closed-loop yet. This study designed a new control system for pigeon-robots, which integrated the function of trajectory monitoring to that of brain stimulation. It achieved the closed-loop control in turning or circling by estimating pigeons' flight state instantaneously and the corresponding logical regulation. The stimulation targets located at the formation reticularis medialis mesencephali (FRM) in the left and right brain, for the purposes of left- and right-turn control, respectively. The stimulus was characterized by the waveform mimicking the nerve cell membrane potential, and was activated intermittently. The wearable control unit weighted 11.8 g totally. The results showed a 90% success rate by the closed-loop control in pigeon-robots. It was convenient to obtain the wing shape during flight maneuver, by equipping a pigeon-robot with a vivo camera. It was also feasible to regulate the evolution of pigeon flocks by the pigeon-robots at different hierarchical level. All of these lay the groundwork for the application of pigeon-robots in scientific researches.
Animals ; Columbidae/physiology* ; Robotics/methods* ; Cerebral Cortex