A biologically inspired object tracking system

The anatomy of the insect brain provides insights to neural architectures and visual processing algorithms which serve as blueprints for neuromimetic silicon chip designs. Selective attention reduces the amount of computation required by a biological system navigating through an information rich environment. In the insect visual system we see an example of task-specific sensor optimization for the detection of a topological invariant, the focus of expansion of the optic flow. A description of those regions of the optic lobe concerned with flow-field analysis is presented and this is followed by a description of a simple neural subsystem capable of detecting such a focus. This information is used in a feedback control system involving; the peripheral sensors to gate object tracking and orienting systems. This robust and simple system is an ideal candidate for implementation in evolving silicon based vision systems.