180

L. Parayitam et al.

in any weather conditions. The autonomous systems are working safely and smoothly

by detecting the obstacles and avoid the collisions with the help of combined vision

and LIDAR systems.

Main applications of vision and LIDAR based systems are self-driving cars,

autonomous underwater vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, micro aerial vehicles,

mobile robotics and terrestrial applications.

Navigational Methods Adopted by Natural fliers

Birds migrate to different places during winter and come back to native place after

winter. They migrate for several thousands of kilometers and they reach the destina-

tion using compass for orientation and maps for identifying the place. Orientation is

the capability to maintain a particular direction of compass. Birds are having their

own inherent compass systems for migration. If any animal wants to move for long

periods of time in a conventional way, they need some compass system.

Migrating birds do not have inborn maps. But, most of the birds will travel and

reach to same place for the next year. Procellariiforms are Sea birds, and they fly

long-distance in the ocean, to trace the same Island for breeding in the next year.

It is assumed that these birds are permanently connecting to that place by frequent

circumnavigation of the earth. Winter sites are suitable for breeding of migratory

birds.

The methods of study of migration, navigation and orientation require the behav-

ioral experiments, Neuro anatomical studies and combination of both. The behavioral

experiments are done by Round Arena in the Lab (by keeping a bird in cage), Radio

tagging for the free flying birds and ringing [9].

Various navigational methods followed by natural fliers include the following:

a.

Visual Land Marks

b.

Star patterns at Night

c.

Sun as a Compass

d.

Moon Orientation

e.

Meteorological Features

f.

Geomagnetic Fields and Infra-magnetic Detection

g.

Polarized Light

h.

Ultra violet Rays

i.

Odor/Smell sensory Methods

j.

Echo-location in Bats

k.

Sound vibrations by hearing

a.

Visual Land Marks

Navigation with topographical map is called as piloting. Fliers make use of land-

marks, mountains and rivers. They remember these features during their migratory

flight path. Vision is highly developed except in small bats which depend on echo