A remote controlled helicopter for investigating the echoes experienced by bat during navigation

Project Information

Chirocopter

Grant agreement ID: 326939

Project closed

Start date 1 May 2013

End date 30 April 2015

Funded under

• Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Total cost € 231 283,20

EU contribution € 231 283,20

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
United Kingdom

Objective

While foraging and commuting, echolocating bats navigate to salient places in their surroundings. They are able to do this relying only on echolocation. Currently, we have only a very limited idea about the kind of information these animals extract from the returning echoes to support navigation. Recent findings in both insect vision and the sensory ecology of bats suggest that their navigation ability is based on statistical descriptors of the environment. This project aims at immersing an artificial echolocator, the Chirocopter, i.e. an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with an emission and recording apparatus, in real environments, re-enacting the behaviour recorded from freely behaving bats. In this approach, this project is the first to collect an ecologically valid set of stimuli (echoes) as perceived by flying bats. The dataset collected using the Chirocopter allows testing the hypothesis that a statistical representation of the environment underlies the navigation abilities of bats. Final aim of the project is to develop a bio-inspired algorithm for echo based navigation to explain the navigation capabilities of bats.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.

• natural sciences › biological sciences › ecology
• engineering and technology › electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering › electronic engineering › robotics › autonomous robots › drones
• engineering and technology › mechanical engineering › vehicle engineering › aerospace engineering › aircraft › rotorcraft

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Programme(s)

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

• FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF - Marie-Curie Action: "Intra-European fellowships for career development"

Call for proposal

FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

• EU contribution: € 231 283,20
• Address: BEACON HOUSE QUEENS ROAD ; BS8 1QU Bristol ; United Kingdom
• Activity type: Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
• Total cost: No data