Feel Like an Insect: A Bio-Inspired Tactile Sensor System

Hellbach, Sven; Krause, André Frank; Dürr, Volker

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-17534-3_83

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Antennae are leglike appendages that have evolved to become dedicated sensory organs, combining various sensory modalities such as sound, gravi-, thermo-chemo-and in some cases probably even magnetoreception (Ferreira de Oliveira et al, 2010;Göpfert and Robert, 2001;Hansson, 1999;Sandeman, 1976;Tichy, 2007). They also mediate different mechanosensory cues provide tactile of versatility with simplicity makes an insect antenna not only a fascinating biological sense organ; it makes it a model for artificial tactile systems that use only a single probe Hellbach et al, 2010) as an alternative to arrays of hair-like whiskers (Kim and Möller, 2007;Pearson et al, 2007;Solomon and Hartmann, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomechanics of the stick insect antenna: Damping properties and structural correlates of the cuticle

Dirks

Dürr

2011

Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials

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Please cite this article as: Dirks, J.-H., Dürr, V., Biomechanics of the stick insect antenna: Damping properties and structural correlates of the cuticle. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials (2011Materials ( ), doi:10.1016Materials ( /j.jmbbm.2011 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. AbstractThe antenna of the Indian stick insect Carausius morosus is a highly specialized near-range sensory probe used to actively sample tactile cues about location, distance or shape of external objects in real time.The length of the antenna's flagellum is 100 times the diameter at the base, making it a very delicate and slender structure. Like the rest of the insect body, it is covered by a protective exoskeletal cuticle, making it stiff enough to allow controlled, active, exploratory movements and hard enough to resist damage and wear. At the same time, it is highly flexible in response to contact forces, and returns rapidly to its straight posture without oscillations upon release of contact force. Which mechanical adaptations allow stick insects to unfold the remarkable combination of maintaining a sufficiently invariant shape between contacts and being sufficiently compliant during contact? What role does the cuticle play?Our results show that, based on morphological differences, the flagellum can be divided into three zones, consisting of a tapered cone of stiff exocuticle lined by an inner wedge of compliant endocuticle. This inner wedge is thick at the antenna's base and thin at its distal half. The decay time constant after deflection, a measure that indicates strength of damping, is much longer at the base (τ > 25 ms) than in the distal half (τ < 18 ms) of the flagellum. Upon experimental desiccation, reducing mass and compliance of the endocuticle, the flagellum becomes under-damped. Analyzing the frequency components indicates that the flagellum can be abstracted with the model of a double pendulum with springs and dampers in both joints.We conclude that in the stick-insect antenna the cuticle properties described are structural correlates of damping, allowing for a straight posture in the instant of a new contact event, combined with a maximum of flexibility.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomechanics of the stick insect antenna: Damping properties and structural correlates of the cuticle

Dirks

Dürr

2011

Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials

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“…The instant of contact has also been estimated in other artificial antennae that mimic insect behavior [ 29 ]. In these experiments, a two-axis acceleration sensor placed at the tip of the antenna was used, which measured the link vibrations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Object Detection Using a Robotic Sensing Antenna with Vibration Damping Control

Feliu-Batlle

Feliu-Talegón²,

Castillo-Berrio

2017

Sensors

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Some insects or mammals use antennae or whiskers to detect by the sense of touch obstacles or recognize objects in environments in which other senses like vision cannot work. Artificial flexible antennae can be used in robotics to mimic this sense of touch in these recognition tasks. We have designed and built a two-degree of freedom (2DOF) flexible antenna sensor device to perform robot navigation tasks. This device is composed of a flexible beam, two servomotors that drive the beam and a load cell sensor that detects the contact of the beam with an object. It is found that the efficiency of such a device strongly depends on the speed and accuracy achieved by the antenna positioning system. These issues are severely impaired by the vibrations that appear in the antenna during its movement. However, these antennae are usually moved without taking care of these undesired vibrations. This article proposes a new closed-loop control schema that cancels vibrations and improves the free movements of the antenna. Moreover, algorithms to estimate the 3D beam position and the instant and point of contact with an object are proposed. Experiments are reported that illustrate the efficiency of these proposed algorithms and the improvements achieved in object detection tasks using a control system that cancels beam vibrations.

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“…Strain gauges are ultralight sensors that, being adequately placed, are very reliable and effective sensors to measure strains, and thus they can be used to estimate force/torques. In fact, flexible links have been recently used in many promising applications as: object identification and spatial localization [5]; texture discrimination in mobile robots [6]; simultaneous localization and mapping techniques for robot navigation [7]; classification of objects based on their material properties [8]; underwater sensing whiskers to measure water flow velocity [9], and as two-flexible-fingers gripper for grasping tasks [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Lightweight Beak-Like Sensing System for Grasping Tasks of Flapping Aerial Robots

Feliu

Acosta

Feliú

et al. 2022

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

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Many sensor systems in robotics are bio-inspired by similar mechanisms in living creatures. Birds frequently use their beaks to grasp and manipulate objects. This work proposes a very lightweight sensor system that emulates a bird's beak, thus allowing flapping aerial robots to interact with the environment, as e.g. to perform grasping or manipulation tasks. The sensor system is composed of a flexible link (beam) actuated by a micro servomotor, two strain gauges placed on different points and a rigid link opposed. Additionally, a new algorithm is also developed that estimates the instant at which the beak impacts with an object, the contact position and the exerted force. Our sensor system outperforms the existing designs in robotics applications, because it is lightweight, small, cheap, with very low computational load and without any complementary perception. It is demonstrated that the adequate placement of two strain gauges allow the estimation of the contact point and the force exerted between the beam and an object, and the accuracy achieved is enough to reckon properties of the object and develop force control systems. The validation has been made and reported through finite-element simulations and experiments, and the results illustrate the efficiency of the prototype and the proposed algorithm.

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Feel Like an Insect: A Bio-Inspired Tactile Sensor System

Cited by 11 publications

References 7 publications

Biomechanics of the stick insect antenna: Damping properties and structural correlates of the cuticle

Biomechanics of the stick insect antenna: Damping properties and structural correlates of the cuticle

Improved Object Detection Using a Robotic Sensing Antenna with Vibration Damping Control

A Lightweight Beak-Like Sensing System for Grasping Tasks of Flapping Aerial Robots

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