By infusing a virtual fruit fly with artificial intelligence, Janelia and Google DeepMind scientists have created a computerized insect that can walk and fly just like the real thing.

The new virtual fly is the most realistic simulation of a fruit fly created to date. It combines a new anatomically accurate model of the fly’s outer skeleton, a fast physics simulator, and an artificial neural network trained on fly behaviors to mimic the actions of a real fly.

Along with walking and flying across complex trajectories, the virtual fly can use its eyes to control and steer its flight.

This video shows the fly model reproducing a flight maneuver (spontaneous turning) of a real fly. The cyan dots visualize the real fly’s trajectory the model is required to track. The flying video is 160 times slower than real time.

Next, the fly model is shown executing commands to walk at the speed of 2 cm/s while turning left and right, followed by the fly model imitating a walking trajectory of the real fruit fly, which includes walking at different speeds, turning, and briefly stopping. The action of the leg adhesion actuators, which emulate sticky feet of the real fly, can be seen at the leg tips (orange: adhesion actuator active, gray: inactive). The walking video is 16 times slower than real time.

Credit: Vaxenburg et al.