Data from: Active anemosensing hypothesis: How flying insects could estimate ambient wind direction

Estimating the direction of ambient fluid flow is a crucial step during
chemical plume tracking for flying and swimming animals. How animals
accomplish this remains an open area of investigation. Recent calcium
imaging with tethered flying Drosophila has shown that flies encode the
angular direction of multiple sensory modalities in their central complex:
orientation, apparent wind (or airspeed) direction, and direction of. Here
we describe a general framework for how these three sensory modalities can
be integrated over time to provide a continuous estimate of ambient wind
direction. After validating our framework using a flying drone, we use
simulations to show that ambient wind direction can be most accurately
estimated with trajectories characterized by frequent, large magnitude
turns. Furthermore, sensory measurements and estimates of their
derivatives must be integrated over a period of time that incorporates at
least one of these turns. Finally, we discuss approaches that insects
might use to simplify the required computations and present a list of
testable predictions. Together, our results suggest that ambient flow
estimation may be an important driver underlying the zigzagging maneuvers
characteristic of plume tracking animals' trajectories.