Robotics to Understand Animal Behaviour

For centuries, designers and engineers have turned to biological systems to seek inspiration for constructing functional, flexible, and efficient robots. Over the years biologically inspired robotics has matured into a significant branch of robotics. Recently, biologists and interdisciplinary teams are using robots as viable testbeds to help explore and evaluate hypotheses in animal behaviour. This strategy offers a suitable alternative to traditional biological methods, which have severe limitations including the feasibility to minimize confounding influences and isolate effects, the effects of the experiment and the experimenter on the study animal, and other limitations imposed by the behaviour of the animals, etc.. For example, a fish-like robot can greatly help biologists collect in-situ data on fish schooling behaviour with limited interferences from human or other factors, explore potential mechanisms of hydrodynamic benefits among individuals, and test hypotheses in collective motion by including the robot in the loop of collective animal behaviour. 

This Research Topic aims to expand the application of bio-inspired robots and to provide new ideas for studies in animal behaviour from animal locomotion to collective behaviour. Current studies on bio-inspired robots mainly focus on how to construct and control these platforms for artificial missions. Limited studies consider the applications of bio-inspired robots as a tool to better understand biological phenomena. Taking advantage of bio-mimics in both morphology and control, bio-inspired robots can be a great platform to study animal behaviour, such as animal locomotion, individual movement, and group behaviour. In general, the goal of the Research Topic is to collect those interdisciplinary studies that reverse the idea of bio-inspired robots by applying engineering methods (theory, simulation, or experiment) to study animal behaviour in biological systems. 

To achieve this goal, this Research Topic will showcase recent developments in using bio-inspired robots to understand animal behaviour. Interdisciplinary studies which cover both engineering and biological sciences are ideal but not necessary. Studies without biological data are also acceptable, as long as they follow the spirit of using robots to either explore or test hypotheses in animal behaviour.

This Research Topic will explore themes including, but not limited to:

• Aerodynamics in flying robots and animals

• Sensing and locomotion control in flying robots and animals

• Hydrodynamics in swimming robots and animals

• Sensing and locomotion control in swimming robots and animals

• Forging behaviour in robots and animals

• Obstacle/predator avoidance behaviour in robot and animals 

• Formation control in groups of robots and animals

• Collective behaviour in groups of robots and animals