MantisBot Uses Minimal Descending Commands to Pursue Prey as Observed in Tenodera Sinensis

Praying mantises are excellent models for studying directed motion. They may track prey with rapid saccades of the head, prothorax, and legs, or actively pursue prey, using visual input to modulate their walking patterns. Here we present a conductance-based neural controller for MantisBot, a 28 degree-of-freedom robot, which enables it to use faux-visual information from a head sensor to either track or pursue prey with its prothorax and appropriate movements of one of its legs. The controller can switch between saccades and smooth tracking, as seen in pursuit, modulating only two neurons in its model thoracic ganglia via descending commands. Similarly, the neural leg controller redirects the direction of locomotion, and automatically produce reflex reversals seen in other insects when they change direction, via two simple descending commands.