Magnetostrictive bioinspired whisker is a new kind of sensor that can realize tactile and flow sensing by utilizing magnetoelastic effect. e sensitivity is a key technical indicator of whisker sensor. e paper presented a new magnetostrictive whisker based on Galfenol cantilever beam, as well as its operation principle. en, the static and dynamic sensitivity of the whisker sensor was investigated by using a self-made experimental system. e results illustrated that the proposed sensor has a high sensitivity. Its static sensitivity is 2.2 mV/mN. However, its dynamic sensitivity depends on the vibration frequency. When working at the natural frequency of the cantilever beam, the dynamic sensitivity performs an obvious increase-1.3 mV/mN at 3.5 Hz (the first-order natural frequency) and 2.1 mV/mN at 40 Hz (the second-order natural frequency), respectively.

A magnetostrictive bioinspired whisker sensor based on a galfenol/beryllium-bronze/galfenol composite cantilever beam was developed in this work. According to the new design concept, the proposed whisker can output positive and negative voltages under different bending directions. Besides, the proposed whisker sensor can realize the bidirectional distance and microforce perception. Using the classical beam theory, a theoretical model was used to predict the output performance of the whisker. An experimental system was established to test the whisker's output performance. In the experiment, the designed whisker, compared with a traditional unimorph whisker, displayed an output voltage range of −240 to 240 mV. The parameters were as follows: the distance was 0–22 mm, with the microforce sensing range of 9.8–2744 mN, the average distance was 10.90 mm/mV, and the force sensitivity was 11.4 mN/mV. At last, obstacle perception was applied. The experiment showed that the proposed whisker sensor can realize the bidirection tactile perception in one-dimensional space. The work expands the function of the magnetostrictive bioinspired whisker, acquiring the multi-information for single-sensor system.