What do ears do for bats?

To clarify, a global consortium of researchers (co-ordinated via the Active Perception Lab at the University of Antwerp, Belgium ) spent 38 months constructing and testing a bionic bat head called the Chiroptera Inspired Robotic CEphaloid (CIRCE).
Much like a real bat head, the bionic bat head has moveable pinnae which can rotate and lock-on to ultrasonic echo location pulses.
The techno-ears were constructed to mimic the shape of real bat pinnae which had been 3D scanned in Hong Kong (see graphic). “These experiments show that a fairly simple sonar device can extract more spatial information about realistic objects in its direct surroundings than is conventionally believed.” – say the research team. Their final report on the project (completed in 2006) can be read here.

* Item title inspired by:  ‘What ears do for bats: A comparative study of pinna sound pressure transformation in chiroptera.‘ M. Obrist, M. B. Fenton, J. Eger, and P. Schlegel, J. Exp. Biol., no. 180, pp. 119–152, 1993.

Posted by Martin Gardiner on
Monday, July 25th, 2011 at 12:02 am
under .