MRI: Development of a System for High-Resolution Uninterrupted Capture of Complex Animal Motions

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This major research instrumentation award supports the development of an integrated camera array that will be customized to meet the challenges of capturing fast and highly complex animal motions--providing an enabling tool for fundamental research to understand and model the dynamics of motion. The instrument will permit uninterrupted motion tracking for hundreds of points on an animal as it executes even the most complex motions, such as midair somersaults that bats perform in pursuit of prey. The unprecedented detail, quality, and quantity of the data to be generated will provide the basis for new fundamental research into how animals use freedom of movement to attain unmatched levels of performance in maneuverability and energy efficiency. The large volume of quantitative data produced by the instrument will bring data-intensive methods--from non-linear dynamics and machine learning-- to bear on the field of animal motion. A deeper understanding of the principles behind animal motion will be key to the development of next-generation mobile robots that can handle unconstrained, natural environments. These highly dexterous, mobile robots will enhance productivity in applications such as manufacturing, health care, disaster response, precision agriculture, forestry and environmental monitoring and clean-up. This instrument will also enable fundamental research on the motion of man-made structures, such as the complex dynamic motions inherent in flutter in aerodynamic systems. Knowledge gleaned from this instrument will also help veterinarians to diagnose disease and pain from animals' motion patterns. Graduate and undergraduate students will be involved in instrumentation development and the instrumentation will enable interdisciplinary research training opportunities in engineering and biology. The instrument will combine high spatial and temporal resolution with the ability to view a moving animal from many different angles at the same time. It will consist of 48 high-speed video cameras that can deliver a 1280x1024-pixel image resolution at 1057-Hz frame rate. High-quality illumination will be provided by 8 specialized lights so that no part of a moving animal will ever be hidden from view. All cameras in the array will be synchronized (precision < 10 nanoseconds) and operated automatically to allow for efficient capture of large motion data sets. A recording of 5 seconds, for example, will result in over 250,000 images with 332 Gigabytes of raw data. The project team's automated image processing methods will allow reliable tracking of several hundred landmark points across such large image sets. The instrument and its accompanying suite of software tools will be used for the study of previously unexplained animal motion capabilities such as the highly articulated flight of bats, gliding of snakes, and lizards running on vertical substrates. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.