Secret Math of Fly Eyes

cunniff writes: Wired Magazine points us to recent research which demonstrates an algorithm derived from the actual biological implementation of fly vision. According to the paper:

Here we present a model with multiple levels of non-linear dynamic adaptive components based directly on the known or suspected responses of neurons within the visual motion pathway of the fly brain. By testing the model under realistic high-dynamic range conditions we show that the addition of these elements makes the motion detection model robust across a large variety of images, velocities and accelerations.

It is claimed in the paper that "The implementation of this new algorithm could provide a very useful and robust velocity estimator for artificial navigation systems." Additionally, the paper describes the algorithm as extremely simple, capable of being implemented on very small and power-efficient processors. Best of all, the entire paper is public and hosted via a service that allows authenticated users to give feedback.