Humans and animals operate – with seemingly little effort – in complex and ever changing environments. This requires their brains to process flexibly the information about the environment provided by their sensory systems and to generate appropriate behaviour. Even at the beginning of the 21st century, autonomous behaviour has not been successfully replicated by machines.

Computers are much faster at number crunching than humans and can beat the greatest at chess. However, when it comes to behaviour, e.g. autonomous orientation in a complex cluttered world, not only humans but also tiny animals, such insects, are so much superior to any artificial system that roboticists can only gaze in wonder.