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Tapered Polymer Whiskers to Enable Three-Dimensional Tactile Feature Extraction
David W Collinson1, Hannah M Emnett1, Jinqiang Ning1
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
Soft Robotics
|June 10, 2020
Summary
Researchers developed artificial whiskers mimicking biological rat vibrissae using a novel surface conforming fiber drawing (SCFD) method. These tapered artificial whiskers accurately detect object contact locations, advancing biomimetic sensory systems.
Area of Science:
- Biomimetics
- Robotics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Mammals use vibrissae (whiskers) for tactile environmental exploration.
- Vibrissae transmit mechanical signals to receptors at their base.
- Tapered whiskers are crucial for determining 3D contact location, but biomimetic replication is challenging.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and characterize an artificial whisker that mimics biological rat vibrissae.
- To create a biomimetic sensory input device based on the rat whisker system.
Main Methods:
- Development of a novel manufacturing process: surface conforming fiber drawing (SCFD).
- Production of artificial whiskers with mechanical and geometric properties mimicking biological rat vibrissae.
- Testing the sensory capabilities of the artificial whiskers.
Main Results:
- The SCFD process successfully produced tapered artificial whiskers.
- Artificial whiskers demonstrated improved performance over non-tapered filaments.
- SCFD-manufactured whiskers predicted contact point locations with a median error of 0.47 cm.
Conclusions:
- The developed artificial whisker is a successful biomimic of biological rat vibrissae.
- The SCFD manufacturing process enables the creation of functional tapered artificial whiskers.
- This technology advances the development of biomimetic tactile sensory systems.
