Flying insects have evolved to develop efficient strategies to navigate in natural environments. Yet, studying them experimentally is difficult because of their small size and high speed of motion. Consequently, previous studies were limited to tethered flights, hovering flights, or restricted flights within confined laboratory chambers. Here, we report the development of a cable-driven parallel robot, named lab-on-cables, for tracking and interacting with a free-flying insect. In this approach, cameras are mounted on cables, so as to move automatically with the insect. We designed a reactive controller that minimizes the online tracking error between the position of the flying insect, provided by an embedded stereo-vision system, and the position of the moving lab, computed from the cable lengths. We validated the lab-on-cables with Agrotis ipsilon moths (ca. 2 centimeters long) flying freely up to 3 meters per second. We further demonstrated, using prerecorded trajectories, the possibility to track other insects such as fruit flies or mosquitoes. The lab-on-cables is relevant to free-flight studies and may be used in combination with stimulus delivery to assess sensory modulation of flight behavior (e.g., pheromone-controlled anemotaxis in moths).

飞行昆虫已经进化为开发在自然环境中导航的有效策略。但是，由于它们的体积小且运动速度快，因此很难进行实验研究。因此，以前的研究仅限于系留飞行，悬停飞行或密闭实验室室内的受限飞行。在这里，我们报告了一个名为电缆实验室的电缆驱动并行机器人的发展情况，该机器人用于跟踪自由飞行​​的昆虫并与之互动。在这种方法中，将摄像机安装在电缆上，以便与昆虫一起自动移动。我们设计了一种无功控制器，可将嵌入式立体视觉系统提供的飞行昆虫的位置与根据电缆长度计算出的移动实验室的位置之间的在线跟踪误差最小化。我们通过以下方式验证了电缆实验室Agrotis ipsilon飞蛾（长约2厘米）可自由飞速至每秒3米。我们使用预先记录的轨迹进一步证明了跟踪其他昆虫（例如果蝇或蚊子）的可能性。电缆实验室与自由飞行研究有关，可以与刺激传递结合使用，以评估飞行行为的感官调节（例如，飞蛾中信息素控制的驱虫病）。