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Millisecond insect tracking system

Animals such as insects have provided a rich source of inspiration for designing robots. For example, animals navigate to goals via efficient coordination of individual motor actions, and demonstrate natural solutions to problems also faced by engineers. Recording individual body part positions during large scale movement would therefore be useful. Such multi-scale observations, however, are challenging. With video, for example, there is typically a trade-off between the volume over which an animal can be recorded and spatial resolution within the volume. Even with high pixel-count cameras, motion blur can be a challenge when using available light. Here we present a new approach for tracking animals, such as insects, with an optical system that bypasses this tradeoff by actively pointing a telephoto video camera at the animal. This system is based around high-speed pan-tilt mirrors which steer an optical path shared by a quadrant photodiode and a high-resolution, high-speed telephoto video recording system. The mirror is directed to lock on to the image of a 25-milligram retroreflector worn by the animal. This system allows high-magnification videography with reduced motion blur over a large tracking volume. With our prototype, we obtained millisecond order closed-loop latency and recorded videos of flying insects in a tracking volume extending to an axial distance of 3 meters and horizontally and vertically by 40 degrees. The system offers increased capabilities compared to other video recording solutions and may be useful for the study of animal behavior and the design of bio-inspired robots.

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