TacWhiskers: Biomimetic optical tactile whiskered robots
This work addresses tactile perception for robotics, offering an inexpensive and customizable solution, but it is incremental as it builds on existing optical tactile sensor technology.
The researchers tackled the problem of tactile sensing in robots by developing TacWhisker arrays, biomimetic optical tactile whiskers, and found that the dynamic version achieved millimeter-scale location perception in active object localization tasks, while the static version performed poorly.
Here we propose and investigate a novel vibrissal tactile sensor - the TacWhisker array - based on modifying a 3D-printed optical cutaneous (fingertip) tactile sensor - the TacTip. Two versions are considered: a static TacWhisker array analogous to immotile tactile vibrissae (e.g. rodent microvibrissae) and a dynamic TacWhisker array analogous to motile tactile vibrissae (e.g. rodent macrovibrissae). Performance is assessed on an active object localization task. The whisking motion of the dynamic TacWhisker leads to millimetre-scale location perception, whereas perception with the static TacWhisker array is relatively poor when making dabbing contacts. The dynamic sensor output is dominated by a self-generated motion signal, which can be compensated by comparing to a reference signal. Overall, the TacWhisker arrays give a new class of tactile whiskered robots that benefit from being relatively inexpensive and customizable. Furthermore, the biomimetic basis for the TacWhiskers fits well with building an embodied model of the rodent sensory system for investigating animal perception. A video demonstrating this robot can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksS177ep6yY