[HARD++] 11/05/2023: (Vietnam paper-based) AIEO READING

PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are
based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Insect-inspired Robots
A recent conference reports on developments in biorobotics A A tiny
insect navigates its way across featureless salt-pans. A cockroach
successfully works out how to scramble over an obstacle. The mantis
shrimp scans its aquatic world through hyperspectral eyes. Using the
most basic of equipment and brains tinier than a pinhead, insects
constantly solve complex problems of movement, vision and
navigation processing data that would challenge a supercomputer.
How they do it is driving one of the most exciting new fields of
technology-biomimetics and biorobotics, the imitation of insect
systems to control man-made machines. Delegates at a recent
conference presented some outcomes of their work in this area.
B Dr Alex Zelinsky suggested that the method by which wasps use
landmarks to find their way back to the nest may one day be part of a
system for navigating cars that 'know' where to go. A research team
led by Dr Zelinsky has shown that a robot can navigate its way along
50 different landmarks by recognizing them individually using a
panoramic camera. ‘The inspiration came from biology, where wasps
use a practice called “turn back and look” to orient themselves as they
emerge from its nest. By flying to and fro, they lock in images of the
nest from different angles and perspectives, so they can recognize it
again,' he explained. The robot's panoramic camera logs the
surrounding area and its key landmarks, which are then sorted in its
computer according to how reliable they are as navigational aids. The
landmarks are then scaled, from small to large, so that the robot can
recognize whether it is getting closer to or further away from them.
Their location is built into a map in its 'mind', which operates at
different scales and instructs the robot whether to turn left or right at a
particular mark. The technology provides a general way for a machine
to navigate an unknown landscape.
C For three decades, Professor Ruediger Wehner has journeyed from
Switzerland to the Sahara desert where Catalyphis, a tiny ant with a
brain weighing just 0.1 mg, performs acts of navigational genius when
it leaves its nest, forages for food and returns successfully.
Cataglyphis uses polarised light, caused when air molecules scatter
light, to orient and steer itself. Wehner's team found the ant has a set of
specialized photoreceptors along the upper rim of its eyes that detect
polarized light, while other receptors perform different navigational
tasks. As the sun moves, the ant notes its direction each time it leaves
the nest and updates its internal compass. Using other eye receptors it
stores a 'snapshot' image of landmarks, close to the nest entrance in its
eyes and compares this with what it sees as it returns. The ant also has
a way of measuring distance traveled, while a 'path integrator'
periodically informs the ant of its current position relative to its point
of departure. Rather than integrate all the information it receives in its
brain, the ant actually performs a number of complex calculations in
different organs. Like a supercomputer, the ant has many separate
subroutines going on simultaneously. Using the ant's ability to steer by
polarised light and to store and reuse landscape images, Wehner and
colleagues have built ‘Sahaboť, a small vehicle that uses polarisers
and a digital CCD camera to store 360° images of landmarks to the
ones in its memory
D. Professor Robert Michelson had a different desert challenge - to
design a flying robot that can not only navigate but also stay aloft and
hover in the thin atmosphere of Mars. Drawing inspiration from insect
flight, he has gone beyond nature to devise a completely new concept
for a flying machine. The 'Entomopter' is sort of double-ended
dragonfly whose wings beat reciprocally. Michelson says that the
flapping-wing design gives the craft unusually high lift compared with
a fixed-wing flyer, enabling it to fly slowly or hover in the thin
Martain air- whereas a fixed-wing craft would have to move at more
than 400 km/h and could not stop to explore.
E. Engineer Roger Quinn and entomologist Professor Roy Ritzmann
are taking their inspiration from cockroaches. According to Quinn and
Ritsmann, the ability of cockroaches to run very fast over rough
terrain may one day give rise to a completely new all-terrain vehicle
with six-legs, or maybe even wheel-like legs call 'whegs'. The key to
the cockroach's remarkable cross- country performance lies partly in
the fact that its legs do a lot of the 'thinking' without having to consult
the brain Quinn and Ritzmann are drawing on cockroach skills to
create robotic walkers and control strategies that capture the
remarkable capacity of these insects to traverse complex terrain and
navigate safety toward goals while avoiding obstacles. The team has
already designed a series of robots that run on six legs or on whegs,
enabling them to handle surprisingly rugged terrain.
F. International experts believe there are tremendous opportunities
biorobotics. However, delegates at the conference had differing
visions for the future of the science. While some were concerned that
the initial applications of biorobotics may be military, others, such as
Dr barbara Webb, predicted swarms of tiny cheap insect-like robots as
society's cleaners and collectors. Sonja Kleinlogel hoped the study of
the hyperspectral eyes if the mantis shrimp might yield remote sensors
that keep watch over the environmental health of our oceans. Several
delegates were concerned about the ethical implications of
biorobotics, and urged that close attention be paid to this as the
science and technologies develop.
Questions 27-32
Reading Passage 3 has six sections A-F.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet
NB You can use any letter more than once.
27. Positive and negative possibilities for the use of insect-inspired
robots
28. How perceived size is used as an aid to navigation
29. An example of decision-making taking place in the limbs
30. A description of a potential aid in space exploration
31. The range of skills that have inspired biorobotics
32. How a variety of navigational methods operate at the same time
Questions 33-36
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for
each answer.
33. Which creatures see particularly well underwater?
34. In addition to a computer, what technical equipment is fitted in Dr
Zelinsky's robot?
35. Where is the Cataglyphis ant found?
36. What atmospheric effect helps the Catalyphis ant to know its
direction?
Questions 37-40
Look at the following people and the list of robots below.
Match each person or people with the correct robot A-G.
List of robots
A. a robot that makes use of light as well as stored images for
navigational purposes
B. a robot that can contribute to enviromental health
C. a robot that can move over difficult surfaces
D. a robot that categorises information from the environment
according to its usefulness
E. a robot that can be used to clean surfaces and collect rubbish
F. a robot that has improved on the ability of the insect on which it is
based
G. a robot that can replace soldiers in war
37. Dr Alex Zelinsky
38. Professor Ruediger Wehner
39. Professor Robert Michelson
40. Roger Quinn and Professor Roy Ritzmann