The Math of a Fly's Eye May Prove Useful

cunniff writes "Wired Magazine points us to recent research that demonstrates an algorithm derived from the actual biological implementation of fly vision (PLoS paper here). Quoting the paper: 'Here we present a model with multiple levels of non-linear dynamic adaptive components based directly on the known or suspected responses of neurons within the visual motion pathway of the fly brain. By testing the model under realistic high-dynamic range conditions we show that the addition of these elements makes the motion detection model robust across a large variety of images, velocities and accelerations.' The researchers claim that 'The implementation of this new algorithm could provide a very useful and robust velocity estimator for artificial navigation systems.' Additionally, the paper describes the algorithm as extremely simple, capable of being implemented on very small and power-efficient processors. Best of all, the entire paper is public and hosted via a service that allows authenticated users to give feedback."

Comments

Re:We don't understand it but we can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be surprised. About medicine.

Starting with simple Aspirin, the line of medicaments that have known positive results but nobody knows why, is loooooooong.

Re:We don't understand it but we can do it

[hatemonger]

I find it unimaginable that people would attempt to implement a technology that is not fully understood. Doing so will eventually yield unexpected results or at the very least, results that cannot be explained.

Except that occasionally building a working model is a useful step to understanding it. I'm happy that Edward Jenner in 1796 started infecting people with cow pox as a way to prevent small pox even though he didn't fully understand why it worked.