When Professor Mandyam Srinivasan began studying bees 25 years ago, he had no idea where it would take him.
He was interested in learning how they landed so elegantly, and avoided colliding in mid-air.
What Professor Srinivasan discovered was a complex and astounding system of vision and flight, which is now being applied to machine vision and robotics.
He and his team at the Queensland Brain Institute have built an autonomous aircraft, without GPS or radar, that flies like a bee.
The technology could have widespread applications for surveillance, rescue operations, defence, and planetary exploration.
Mandyam Srinivasan is a Professor of Visual and Sensory Neuroscience at the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland.