Moth-inspired odor source localization using robotic platforms: A comprehensive review

Abstract

Any odor cue can be traced to find its release source. So-called “source localization” has been observed in animals in many important tasks including finding food or mates. In particular, the scientific community for a long time focused on unraveling the complex behavior of moths while in pursuit of sex pheromones emitted by their distant female counterpart. These studies have provided many insights including details of the flight paths, sensory organs, and pheromone processing. In turn, this knowledge has provided inspiration to engineers and researchers to devise source-seeking algorithms, whereas sensory organs/-mechanisms led to insect-machine hybrid systems. Therefore, this review revolves around these last two approaches specifically (1) the implementation of moth-inspired algorithms in robotic platforms and the (2) use of biosensors such as antennae or insect-machine hybrid systems.