Improved Adaptive Controllers for Sensory Systems — First Attempts

The reception of vibrations is a special sense of touch. It is important for many insects, especially for the group of arachnids. Spiders have various sensilla to notice these vibrations (see Fig. 1).

We do not want to distinguish the different forms of sensilla, but we state the following common properties: ‘The stimulus of this sense of touch is mechanical oscillation energy which is transmitted to the receptor cells in the case of direct contact with an oscillating object’ [2]. Moreover, ‘the cells for reception of vibrations adjust their sensibility to a continuing excitation in such a way that despite this permanent excitation the whole system tends to the rest position’ [3]. Hence, this biological paradigm offers a fundamental principle: adaptation.