TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Remarkable abilities of ants could inspire progress in robotics: Experts
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
The act of stopping to check their surroundings and realigning their progress in relation to the memory of their immediate environment reveals a more complex brain structure in the ant species. (Shutterstock/File)
A
nts are thought to possess the ability to find their way even when they are walking backwards -- which is perhaps why some scientists think that these minuscule creatures could serve to inspire better robots.
As reported by the AFP, researchers with the Journal of Current Biology studied a colony of desert ants and observed how they navigated home while they carried cookie pieces. The research found that as the ants carried small crumbs, they walked forward. When it came to larger bits of cookie, they hauled them backwards, dropping the piece periodically to check the sun’s position and reposition themselves while heading toward their nest.
The act of stopping to check their surroundings and realigning their progress in relation to the memory of their immediate environment reveals a more complex brain structure in the ant species.
(Read also: Animals are getting smarter, but only some of them)
A professor at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics suggests that "ants have a relatively tiny brain, less than the size of a pinhead. Yet they can navigate successfully under many difficult conditions, including going backward."
She adds that “understanding their behavior gives us new insights into brain function and has inspired us to build robot systems that mimic their functions."
Researchers, which include scientists from the University of Lincoln, the Australian National University and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), claim that this ant trait could prove to be useful in terms of developing new computer algorithms to control robots. (nik/kes)
