Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining

Rooney, Thomas; Pipe, Anthony G.; Dogramadzi, Sanja; Pearson, Martin

Abstract

Artificial tactile whisker sensors demonstrate an approach to localisation 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. 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.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Journal: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Print ISSN: 0302-9743
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7429
• Pages: 463-464
• Book Title: Advances in Autonomous Robotics
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_60
• Keywords: biomimetic, whisker, autonmous underwater vehicles, AUV
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/955421
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_60