Finlay StewartCurrent researchI am a PhD student in the Institute of Perception, Action & Behaviour, part of the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. I am supervised by Barbara Webb and Dean Baker. I am also a member of the Neuroinformatics Doctoral Training Centre, who fund my research. | 
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 A 30 second Drosophila flight trajectory in the cylindrical arena. The red section is interpolated using monocular data, while green 'x's represent stereo tracked points. Distances in cm. | I am investigating the integration of visual and olfactory input in free-flying fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). Flies require vertical visual contrast to locate attractive odour sources (Frye et al, 2003). The reason for this is unknown; my PhD project aims to employ a modelling approach to derive an algorithmic account of the mechanisms responsible for this observation. I model the fly's visuomotor control system using Reichardt elementary motion detectors and analogues of the lobula plate tangential cells to detect optic flow patterns, and investigate ways in which olfaction could modulate this behaviour. A particular hypothesis to be assessed is that the fly employs path integration based on visual odometry. I plan to build a robotic model to facilitate evaluation of behavioural algorithms in a physical odour plume, as this is difficult to accurately simulate. In order to provide data to constrain and validate the models, I am also in the process of implementing a system to record flies' flight trajectories in 3D. Finally, I hope to employ a combination of high-level neural modelling and experiments on mutant flies to investigate the neural basis of sensor fusion in the fly.
Poster: Modelling visuomotor control in flying Drosophila (July 07) - Presented at International Congress of Neuroethology and Flying Insects and Robots Symposium.
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| Email: | F.J.Stewart (at) sms.ed.ac.uk | |
| Address: | Room 1104A, James Clerk Maxwell Building, King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ. | |
| Tel: | +44 (0) 131 6513446 |
| 2005 | MSc (by research) in Neuroinformatics, University of Edinburgh. | |
| 2004 | BSc(Hons) in Artificial Intelligence with Psychology, University of Edinburgh. |
MSc thesis: Video tracking of Drosophila gravitaxis. Supervised by Dean Baker & Douglas Armstrong.
MSc poster.
F Stewart, T Taylor & G Konidaris (2005) METAMorph: Experimenting with Genetic Regulatory Networks for Artificial Development. In Proceedings of the Eighth European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL 2005), 5-9 September 2005, Canterbury, UK. (© Springer-Verlag) PDF pre-print.
METAMorph website
BSc thesis: Rewarding individuals and groups. Supervised by Gillian Hayes.