A Robot with Whiskers
Regardless of your feelings toward facial hair, whiskers are a feature among nearly all mammals – mice, cats, sea lions – and each animal may use them in a slightly different capacity whether to track currents or obstacles. Mechanical engineer Mitra Hartmann of Northwestern University and her team are implementing this concept for robotics.
When the whisker encounters an obstacle or other stimuli, it trips a sensor on the follicle end, not in the whisker itself. Robot whiskers would be created accordingly with a six-axis cell. This sensor can collect information such as lateral force, degree of force and twisting motion and direction of force upon impact with external forces. Although, Hartmann says, “You just need how much the whisker bent, what direction the whisker bent, and how much it got pushed into the follicle.”
Hartmann’s team is working on two versions of the cell in two sizes – one about .8 mm cubed and one about the size of an actual rat whisker follicle (1 mm by .5 mm). Also evaluated is the shape of the whisker – tapered versus cylindrical. Experiments revealed that the tapered whiskers were far more effective at detecting objects than the cylindrical ones. "If the whisker were cylindrical, then at every point along the whisker's length the stiffness would be the same," Hartmann says. "The tapered whisker is more flexible in some regions than other regions—it's more flexible at the tip."
If robots can be equipped with cameras and lasers, why would one need whiskers? The concept is under development as a compliment to these other technologies, not a replacement. This could be useful in situations that involve dust or lighting changes. It also enables the robot to act more stealthily in its ability to avoid detection should it be required. “What if you wanted to avoid detection?” Hartmann asks. “You wouldn't want to go blazing light all over the place, right? You'd want to be sneakier than that.”
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