Bounds on Information Transfer for Stabilization of Insect Flight*

Many insects are passively unstable in flight, requiring active control to remain stable. In the fly, an organ called the haltere measures angular velocities and provides fast feedback directly to the wing muscles, bypassing the brain and allowing flies to stabilize themselves. The clear and specific goal of the halteres makes them ideal for understanding how information flows through a nervous system. Here, we ask how much information must be communicated to the wings to stabilize flight. From these bounds we can begin to ask quantitative functional questions about fly flight stabilization: is fly flight information-efficient, and is it as stable as possible given the fidelity of the halteres as sensors?