Abstract
Artificial tactile whisker sensors demonstrate an approach to localisation [1] that is robust to harsh environmental disturbances, endowing autonomous systems with the ability to operate effectively in confined, noisy and visually occluded spaces, such as collapsed buildings or mine shafts, where conventional sensors become unreliable [2]. Marine engineering applications could benefit from such tactile sensors due to the lack of robust underwater close proximity sensing techniques. Animals such as walruses, seals and manatees all have exquisitely sensitive whiskers, which they use for hunting and foraging. Building upon a recent pilot study in underwater tactile sensing [3], we present the motivation for further research and our work plans toward a demonstrator platform for near shore survey and demining.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Fox, C., Evans, M., Pearson, M., Prescott, T.: Tactile SLAM with a biomimetic whiskered robot. In: IEEE International conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE (in press, 2012)
Pearson, M.J., Pipe, A.G., Melhuish, C., Mitchinson, B., Prescott, T.J.: Whiskerbot: A robotic active touch system modeled on the rat whisker sensory system. Adaptive Behavior 15, 223–240 (2007)
Rooney, T., Pearson, M.J., Welsby, J., Horsfield, I., Sewell, R., Dogramadzi, S.: Object localisation using active whiskers on underwater autonomous walking robots. In: 14th International conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), pp. 190–195 (2011)
Chance, T., Kleiner, A., Northcutt, J.: The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV): a cost-effective alternative to deep-towed technology. Integrated Coastal Zone Management 2(7), 65–69 (2000)
Kastelein, R., van Gaalen, M.: The sensitivity of the vibrissae of a pacific walrus(odobenus rosmarus divergens). Aquatic Mammals 14(3), 123–133 (1988)
Ayers, J.: The lobster robot. Weapons Systems Technology Information Analysis Centre 6, 1–5 (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Rooney, T., Pipe, A.G., Dogramadzi, S., Pearson, M.J. (2012). Towards Tactile Sensing Applied to Underwater Autonomous Vehicles for Near Shore Survey and De-mining. In: Herrmann, G., et al. Advances in Autonomous Robotics. TAROS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7429. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_60
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_60
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32526-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32527-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)