All Outputs (53)

Measuring the local viscosity and velocity of fluids using a biomimetic tactile whisker (2015)
Journal Article
Pipe, T., Rooney, T., Pearson, M. J., & Pipe, A. G. (2015). Measuring the local viscosity and velocity of fluids using a biomimetic tactile whisker. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 9222, 75-85. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22979-9_7

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015. A novel technique for determining the relative visco-density of fluids using an actuated flexible beam inspired by the tactile whiskers of marine mammals is presented. This was developed for the i... Read More about Measuring the local viscosity and velocity of fluids using a biomimetic tactile whisker.

Biohybrid control of general linear systems using the adaptive filter model of cerebellum (2015)
Journal Article
Wilson, E. D., Assaf, T., Pearson, M. J., Rossiter, J. M., Dean, P., Anderson, S. R., & Porrill, J. (2015). Biohybrid control of general linear systems using the adaptive filter model of cerebellum. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 9(JUL), https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2015.00005

© 2015 Wilson, Assaf, Pearson, Rossiter, Dean, Anderson and Porrill. The adaptive filter model of the cerebellar microcircuit has been successfully applied to biological motor control problems, such as the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), and to sensor... Read More about Biohybrid control of general linear systems using the adaptive filter model of cerebellum.

Artificial vibrissae DEA-based module (2014)
Journal Article
Assaf, T., Conn, A., Rossiter, J., Walters, P., & Pearson, M. (2014). Artificial vibrissae DEA-based module. Proceedings of SPIE, 9056, https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2044763

The article presents a working whisker structure based on dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). This preliminary work aims to exploit the features of the dielectric elastomer technology for use in an effective and reliable robotic application whilst... Read More about Artificial vibrissae DEA-based module.

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.

Involving patients and the public in healthcare operational research-The challenges and opportunities (2013)
Journal Article
Pearson, M., Monks, T., Gibson, A., Allen, M., Komashie, A., Fordyce, A., …Stein, K. (2013). Involving patients and the public in healthcare operational research-The challenges and opportunities. Operations Research for Health Care, 2(4), 86-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orhc.2013.09.001

Interest is growing internationally in the potential benefits of patient and public involvement (PPI) in research. In the United Kingdom (UK) health and social care services are now committed to involving patients and service users in the planning, d... Read More about Involving patients and the public in healthcare operational research-The challenges and opportunities.

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.

Bioinspired control of electro-active polymers for next generation soft robots (2012)
Conference Proceeding
Wilson, E., Anderson, S. R., Assaf, T., Pearson, M., Walters, P., Prescott, T. J., …Porrill, J. (2012). Bioinspired control of electro-active polymers for next generation soft robots. In G. Herrmann, M. Studley, M. Pearson, A. Conn, C. Melhuish, M. Witkowski, …J. H. Kim (Eds.), Advances in Autonomous Robotics: Joint Proceedings of the 13th Annual TAROS Conference and the 15th Annual FIRA RoboWorld Congress, Bristol, UK, August 20-23, 2012, Proceedings (424-425). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32527-4_42

The emerging field of soft robotics offers the prospect of replacing existing hard actuator technologies with new soft-smart materials [7]. Such materials have the potential to form a key component of safer, more compliant and light-weight robots. So... Read More about Bioinspired control of electro-active polymers for next generation soft robots.

Towards hierarchical blackboard mapping on a whiskered robot (2012)
Journal Article
Prescott, T. J., Pearson, M. J., Evans, M. H., Fox, C. W., Fox, C. W., Evans, M., …Prescott, T. J. (2012). Towards hierarchical blackboard mapping on a whiskered robot. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 60(11), 1356-1366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2012.03.005

The paradigm case for robotic mapping assumes large quantities of sensory information which allow the use of relatively weak priors. In contrast, the present study considers the mapping problem for a mobile robot, CrunchBot, where only sparse, local... Read More about Towards hierarchical blackboard mapping on a whiskered robot.

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.

An internal model architecture for novelty detection: Implications for cerebellar and collicular roles in sensory processing (2012)
Journal Article
Anderson, S. R., Porrill, J., Pearson, M., Pipe, A. G., Prescott, T. J., & Dean, P. (2012). An internal model architecture for novelty detection: Implications for cerebellar and collicular roles in sensory processing. PLoS ONE, 7(9), Article e44560. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0044560

The cerebellum is thought to implement internal models for sensory prediction, but details of the underlying circuitry are currently obscure. We therefore investigated a specific example of internal-model based sensory prediction, namely detection of... Read More about An internal model architecture for novelty detection: Implications for cerebellar and collicular roles in sensory processing.

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.

Tactile discrimination using active whisker sensors (2012)
Journal Article
Fox, C. W., Lepora, N. F., Sullivan, J. C., Mitchinson, B., Pearson, M., Evans, M., …Prescott, T. J. (2012). Tactile discrimination using active whisker sensors. IEEE Sensors Journal, 12(2), 350-362. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2011.2148114

We describe a novel, biomimetic tactile sensing system modeled on the facial whiskers (vibrissae) of animals such as rats and mice. The "BIOTACT Sensor" consists of a conical array of modular, actuated hair-like elements, each instrumented at the bas... Read More about Tactile discrimination using active whisker sensors.

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.