On the influence of morphology of tactile sensors for behavior and control

Many different animal species rely on whiskers for a variety of tasks. Among the most basic are obstacle avoidance and wall-following. We show that fast and reliable evaluation of distances can be greatly improved by an appropriate sensory morphology that matches the physical space of the agent. To...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inRobotics and autonomous systems Vol. 54; no. 8; pp. 686 - 695
Main Authors Fend, Miriam, Bovet, Simon, Pfeifer, Rolf
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 31.08.2006
Subjects
Artificial whisker
Sensory morphology
Tactile sensing
Tactile sensing
Artificial whisker
Sensory morphology
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Many different animal species rely on whiskers for a variety of tasks. Among the most basic are obstacle avoidance and wall-following. We show that fast and reliable evaluation of distances can be greatly improved by an appropriate sensory morphology that matches the physical space of the agent. To investigate morphologies and material properties of whiskers, we conduct experiments both on a real robot and in simulation using artificial evolution. We find that the morphology that is most successful at following a wall strongly resembles the morphologies of natural whiskers. This can be better understood by considering the relation of the agent body to its tactile sensing range, as well as the challenges of various tasks faced by agents endowed with different sensory modalities.
ISSN:0921-8890
1872-793X
DOI:10.1016/j.robot.2006.02.014