Haltere mediated flight stabilization in Diptera: Rate decoupling, sensory encoding, and control realization

Insects of the order Diptera have a single pair of wings. The rear wings of Dipteran insects have evolved into organs that allow stabilizing control responses through sensing and encoding of body angular rate feedback. This dissertation documents research on the physical and physiological mechanisms that enable a pair of halteres to distinguish and encode three orthogonal components of the body rate vector. While the knowledge that the halteres play a role in flight stability has been accepted for centuries, the understanding of how insect's very simple sensory structures are able to encode and decouple the orthogonal components of the rate vector has been lacking. The work described in this report furthers this understanding through modeling and simulation. First, a natural decoupling of the observable rate components has been identified that asserts proportionality of body rate components to averaged strain characteristics near the center of the haltere stroke. Second, a means of encoding and decoding the necessary rate information in a manner compatible with the insect's sensory structures and flight motor physiology has been identified and demonstrated. Finally, the ability of the proposed haltere model to stabilize flight in a 6DOF environment with competing behavioural objectives and randomly generated obstructions has been demonstrated.