Bees Have Third Eye, Applicable for Drones’ Night Vision: Study

Machine vision in drones is similar to human vision and cannot see colours clearly owing to light reflection and day and night difference but bees are different with a third eye, said a new study suggesting revamp of vision techniques in cameras, robots and drones.

A Melbourne-based researchers team has studied how bees have three special eyes on top of their head, in addition to two main eyes at the front. “The three eyes point skyward, and they directly sample the colour of the light above us,” said Dr Adrian Dyer of RMIT University in Mebourne, Australia.

The bee brain knows what kind of lighting conditions are in the surroundings and adjust accordingly when looking for a flower. The ability to distinguish colours in day and night or in a cloudy sky allows bees to find the best flowers to collect food, said researchers.

The third eye of bees, called ocelli, contains two colour receptors that are perfectly tuned for sensing the colour of ambient light and the information is integrated with the colours seen by the two front eyes, they explained.

Dr. Jair Garcia, Professor Marcello Rosa and Associate Professor Adrian Dyer. CREDIT: Monash University

To prove this was happening, the researchers from RMIT University, Monash University, University of Melbourne and Deakin University mapped “neural tracings” sent from the ocelli, showing how they feed into the areas of the bee’s brain that processes colours.

The findings were being published in the scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Extrapolating the findings, Dyer said a revamp of vision techniques in cameras, robots and drones will help deal with a major problem for machine vision – how to make reliable decisions when the colour of the light changes.

Based on a mathematical algorithm, drones can now fly around an orchid, even at night, and accurately detect the colour of different fruits. Same technique could be used by drones to inspect bridges or to analyse mineral sands, he suggested.

“These ideas have been around for a while, but the problem has been how to judge colour accurately,” Dr Dyer said.