Bee-Nav is a new robot navigation strategy inspired by honeybees. It allows even very small robots to travel far away from home and return successfully, using a neural memory of only 42 kilobytes. In a new environment, the robot first performs a short learning flight near home, just as honeybees do. After that, it can travel away for hundreds of meters and still find its way back. Bee-Nav enables lightweight, safe robots to navigate on their own, opening the door to applications such as butterfly-like drones monitoring greenhouses. The research also offers new insight into how flying insects may find their way home. Watch the video [Source: MAVLab TU Delft on youtube.com]
