BEES: exploring Mars with bioinspired technologies

The bioinspired engineering of exploration systems (BEES) applies insects' biological sensory and flight control abilities to the design of real-time autonomous, visual-navigation and control systems for small unmanned flying vehicles. The bioinspired engineering of exploration systems focuses on using the variety of nature-tested mechanisms successfully implemented by biological organisms but not easily accomplished by conventional methods. We apply BEES technology to the development of bioinspired visual navigation sensors integrated on small flyers to enable autonomous flight. BEES technology extracts the salient principles from a variety of diverse organisms adept at flight, and applies them to machines that can fly on Mars.