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High speed switched, multi-channel drive for high voltage dielectric actuation of a biomimetic sensory array (2014)
Journal Article
Pearson, M., & Assaf, T. (2014). High speed switched, multi-channel drive for high voltage dielectric actuation of a biomimetic sensory array. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 8608 LNAI, 414-416. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09435-9_47

Electro-Active Polymers (EAP) have been described as artificial muscles due to their composition andmuscle-like dynamics [1]. Consequently they have attracted a lot of attention from the biomimetic robotics research community and heralded as a potent... Read More about High speed switched, multi-channel drive for high voltage dielectric actuation of a biomimetic sensory array.

Simultaneous localisation and mapping on a multi-degree of freedom biomimetic whiskered robot (2013)
Conference Proceeding
Pearson, M., Fox, C. W., Sullivan, J. C., Prescott, T. J., Pipe, T., & Mitchinson, B. (2013). Simultaneous localisation and mapping on a multi-degree of freedom biomimetic whiskered robot. In L. E. Parker (Ed.), 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (586-592). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630633

A biomimetic mobile robot called 'Shrewbot' has been built as part of a neuroethological study of the mammalian facial whisker sensory system. This platform has been used to further evaluate the problem space of whisker based tactile Simultaneous Loc... Read More about Simultaneous localisation and mapping on a multi-degree of freedom biomimetic whiskered robot.

Biomimetic tactile target acquisition, tracking and capture (2013)
Journal Article
Prescott, T. J., Pearson, M. J., Mitchinson, B., Pearson, M., Pipe, A. G., & Prescott, T. (2014). Biomimetic tactile target acquisition, tracking and capture. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 62(3), 366-375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2013.08.013

Good performance in unstructured/uncertain environments is an ongoing problem in robotics; in biology, it is an everyday observation. Here, we model a particular biological system - hunting in the Etruscan shrew - as a case study in biomimetic robot... Read More about Biomimetic tactile target acquisition, tracking and capture.

Joint conferences - TAROS 2012 and FIRA 2012 (2013)
Journal Article
Pearson, M., Conn, A., & Herrmann, G. (2014). Joint conferences - TAROS 2012 and FIRA 2012. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 62(3), 281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2013.09.008

This special issue contains ten extended, peer-reviewed papers specially selected from 36 full papers [1] and presented at the joint conferences of TAROS 2012 (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems 2012) and FIRA 2012 (the Robot World Congress of the F... Read More about Joint conferences - TAROS 2012 and FIRA 2012.

The effect of whisker movement on radial distance estimation: A case study in comparative robotics (2013)
Journal Article
estimation: A case study in comparative robotics. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 6(12), https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2012.00012

Whisker movement has been shown to be under active control in certain specialist animals such as rats and mice. Though this whisker movement is well characterized, the role and effect of this movement on subsequent sensing is poorly understood. One... Read More about The effect of whisker movement on radial distance estimation: A case study in comparative robotics.

Whisker texture classification with uncertain contact pose geometry (2012)
Presentation / Conference
Evans, M., Pearson, M., Prescott, T. J., & Fox, C. W. (2012, October). Whisker texture classification with uncertain contact pose geometry. Paper presented at IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2012), Vilamoura, Algarve [Portugal]

Tactile sensing can be an important source of information for robots, and texture discrimination in partic- ular is useful in object recognition and terrain identification. Whisker based tactile sensing has recently been shown to be a promising a... Read More about Whisker texture classification with uncertain contact pose geometry.

Predictive prey pursuit in a whiskered robot (2012)
Presentation / Conference
Mitchinson, B., Pearson, M., Pipe, A. G., & Prescott, T. J. (2012, August). Predictive prey pursuit in a whiskered robot. Paper presented at FIRA-TAROS congress, Bristol, UK

Highly active small mammals need to capture prey rapidly and with a high success rate if they are to survive. We consider the case of the Etruscan shrew, which hunts prey including crickets almost as large as itself, and relies on its whiskers (vibri... Read More about Predictive prey pursuit in a whiskered robot.

Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining (2012)
Journal Article
Rooney, T., Pipe, A. G., Dogramadzi, S., & Pearson, M. (2012). Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 7429 LNAI, 463-464. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_60

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, su... Read More about Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining.

The emergence of action sequences from spatial attention: Insight from rodent-like robots (2012)
Presentation / Conference
attention: Insight from rodent-like robots. Paper presented at Living Machines 2012, Barcelona, Spain

Animal behaviour is rich, varied, and smoothly integrated. One plausible model of its generation is that behavioural sub-systems compete to command effectors. In small terrestrial mammals, many behaviours are underpinned by foveation, since important... Read More about The emergence of action sequences from spatial attention: Insight from rodent-like robots.

Tactile SLAM with a biomimetic whiskered robot (2012)
Conference Proceeding
Fox, C. W., Evans, M., Pearson, M., & Prescott, T. J. (2012). Tactile SLAM with a biomimetic whiskered robot. In 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (4925-4930). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224813

Future robots may need to navigate where visual sensors fail. Touch sensors provide an alternative modality, largely unexplored in the context of robotic map building. We present the first results in grid based simultaneous localisation and mapping (... Read More about Tactile SLAM with a biomimetic whiskered robot.

Brain-inspired Bayesian perception for biomimetic robot touch (2012)
Presentation / Conference
Lepora, N., Sullivan, C., Mitchinson, B., Pearson, M., Gurney, K., & Prescott, T. J. (2012, May). Brain-inspired Bayesian perception for biomimetic robot touch. Paper presented at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

Studies of decision making in animals suggest a neural mechanism of evidence accumulation for competing percepts according to Bayesian sequential analysis. This model of perception is embodied in a biomimetic tactile sensing robot based on the ro... Read More about Brain-inspired Bayesian perception for biomimetic robot touch.

Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining (2012)
Journal Article
Rooney, T., Pipe, A. G., Dogramadzi, S., & Pearson, M. (2012). Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 7429, 463-464. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_60

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 a... Read More about Towards tactile sensing applied to underwater autonomous vehicles for near shore survey and de-mining.

Artificial active whiskers for guiding underwater autonomous walking robots (2011)
Presentation / Conference
Rooney, T., Pearson, M., Welsby, J., Horsfield, I., Sewell, R., & Dogramadzi, S. (2011, September). Artificial active whiskers for guiding underwater autonomous walking robots. Paper presented at CLAWAR 2011, Paris, France

A low-cost, biologically inspired underwater walking robot (see Fig. 1) has been designed and built to covertly explore the seabed and to determine properties of submerged objects in obscure and inaccessible underwater locations. This paper focuses o... Read More about Artificial active whiskers for guiding underwater autonomous walking robots.

Whisking with robots: From rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch (2009)
Journal Article
Prescott, T. J., Pearson, M., Mitchinson, B., Sullivan, J. C. W., & Pipe, A. G. (2009). Whisking with robots: From rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 16(3), 42-50. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2009.933624

This article summarizes some of the key features of the rat vibrissal system, including the actively controlled sweeping movements of the vibrissae known as whisking, and reviews the past and ongoing research aimed at replicating some of this functio... Read More about Whisking with robots: From rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch.

Contact type dependency of texture classification in a whiskered mobile robot (2009)
Journal Article
Fox, C. W., Mitchinson, B., Pearson, M., Pipe, A. G., & Prescott, T. J. (2009). Contact type dependency of texture classification in a whiskered mobile robot. Autonomous Robots, 26(4), 223-239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-009-9109-z

Actuated artificial whiskers modeled on rat macrovibrissae can provide effective tactile sensor systems for autonomous robots. This article focuses on texture classification using artificial whiskers and addresses a limitation of previous studies, na... Read More about Contact type dependency of texture classification in a whiskered mobile robot.