Creating Virtual Fear to Control the Locomotion Behavior of Pigeon Robots Using Micro-Stimulation

Abstract

Unlike the flight control of UAVs, the motion control of the pigeon robot needs to consider biological perceptions and decisions. Since it was impossible to perceive the state of the pigeon in the wild environment in real-time, this paper proposed whether instinctive fear emotions can be used to intervene in the movement intention of the pigeon to achieve control of its flight direction by autonomous avoidance. In this paper, we demonstrated that the neural activity of the substantia grisea et fibrosa periventricularis (SGP) nucleus in the pigeon was related to their fearful emotions through tonic immobility (TI) experiments and looming visual stimulation experiments. To verify that the SGP nucleus can modify the motor intention of the pigeon, we conducted electrical stimulation experiments on the SGP nucleus. We found that all pigeons’ SGP nuclei showed avoidance behavior on the same side of the stimulated brain area after stimulation. Thus, using the avoidance behavior produced by micro-stimulation of the SGP nucleus, we achieved control of the flight direction of the free-flying pigeon robot outdoors. This kind of locomotion control utilizing fear emotion can exert the biological intelligence to make the most adaptive behavior and provide technical reference for the outdoor long-distance control of bird robots.