Researchers prepping robot whiskers for extra sensory input

As if cats didn't have large enough egos as it is, now they're going to be strutting around, bragging about being the inspiration for the latest sensory input being squeezed into robots. We might point out to them that other cool animals like rats and walruses have whiskers too, but we're not certain it's going to do any good. All the same, these new robo-whiskers being developed by a research team at Northwestern University are pretty dang neat. The whiskers can sense shapes or the flow of liquid, all based on a single sensor at the base of each whisker. Even more impressively, the whiskers can accurately represent the contour of an object, just by brushing across it. There are plenty of uses for the sensors, such as feeling around in the dark, supplementing cameras and avoiding obstacles. They'll also help researches understand all that fancy whisker-based neurology taking place inside of rats, which we suppose in turn should lead to better bots, which is really the point in the first place, right?

[Kevlar @ Oct 4th 2006 11:26PM]

I, for one, welcome our new whisker-covered, contour-sensing overlords.

Had to be said, I'm sorry.

[resource @ Oct 4th 2006 11:52PM]

They are coming and they will sense your fear.

[NeoteriX @ Oct 5th 2006 12:06AM]

Wow, that actually sounds kind of cool.

It's too bad the facial "whiskers" on that girl I hooked up with in a drunken haze didn't give her any special abilities.

[Picky @ Oct 5th 2006 12:07AM]

Dogs have whiskers too.

[MacD @ Oct 5th 2006 4:07AM]

Old tech used in a new way; I used to work for a company which sold a sensor like this, but basically it was one of these things set on an 2.5D milling unit (kinda); the sensor (which looked like a large pin with the pinhead pointed downwards and doing the touching) would then be brought down and follow the contours of the object underneath it, scanning it quite accurately.

But it sounds like these whiskers are one step better, maybe using the changing resistance of stressed wire to measurebening, and mapping that.

I wonder what the scanning speed of these things are, and what data is actually being used.

[yowzor @ Oct 5th 2006 4:37AM]

make it a female robot and move the whiskers about 2 1/2 feet down. Also, keep her from saying too much and add a holder for a beer stein... Hello SuperBowl

[James @ Oct 5th 2006 11:38AM]

Looks like a good way to get poked in the eye.

[Mariam @ Oct 5th 2006 1:35PM]

Check out this great trail my friend posted on trailfire.com about robots! Here is the link
http://www.trailfire.com/MikeP/trails/5244
Mariam