Definition With their miniature brains, many insects are able to control highly aerobatic flight maneuvers and to solve spatial vision tasks, such as avoiding collisions with stationary obstacles and moving objects, landing on environmental structures, overcoming narrow gaps in cluttered environments, locating a previously learned target based on environmental information, or tracking fastmoving targets. With regard to solving such tasks, insects often outperform man-made autonomous flying

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... ms, especially if computational costs and energy efficiency are taken as benchmarks. To accomplish their extraordinary performance, several insect groups have been shown to actively shape the dynamics of the image flow on their eyes ("optic flow") by the characteristic way they move when solving behavioral tasks. The neural processing of spatial information is greatly facilitated by such active vision strategies, for instance, by segregating the rotational from the translational optic flow component by way of a saccadic flight and gaze strategy. Flying insects acquire at least part of their strength as autonomous systems through active interactions with their environment, which lead to adaptive behavior in surroundings of a wide range of complexity. Model simulations and robotic implementations show that the smart biological mechanisms of motion computation and visually guided flight control might be helpful to find technical solutions for problems related to micro air vehicle navigation. Detailed Description Flying animals, but also autonomous man-made flying systems, have to solve a number of fundamental tasks. Most basically, they need to control their attitude in three-dimensional space and to stabilize their intended flight course against disturbances. Moreover, they have to accomplish a number of tasks that rely on information about the spatial layout of their surroundings, for instance, when avoiding collisions with obstacles, negotiating narrow gaps in cluttered surroundings, or finding their way back to a previously learned location, such as a profitable food source or the often inconspicuous entrance of their home. In other situations, an animal may encounter other moving animals and either needs to avoid them in the case of a predator or may pursue one of them, for instance, when it is searching for a prey or a mate. Visual information and its processing by the nervous system are crucial for solving such tasks in free flight. Self-motion through