A control engineering perspective on the advantages of efference copies

Abstract

Biological systems have evolved to perform high-speed voluntary movements whilst maintaining robustness and stability. This paper examines a control architecture based on the principles of efference copies found in insect sensorimotor control which we call the fully-separable-degrees-of-freedom (FSDoF) controller. Within a control engineering framework, we benchmark the advantages of this control architecture against two common engineering control schemes: a pure feedback (PFB) controller and a Smith predictor (SP). Our study identifies three advantages of the FSDoF for biology. It is advantageous in controlling systems with sensor delays, and it can effectively handle noise. Thirdly, it allows biological sensors to increase their operating range. We evaluate the robustness of the FSDoF controller and show that it achieves improved performance with equal stability margins and robustness. Finally, we discuss variations of the FSDoF which theoretically provide the same performance.