E-whiskers: Will human technology finally catch up with cats?
Researchers have developed a set of 'e-whiskers,' highly sensitive tactile hairs that could someday help robots navigate tight spaces.
A cat's whiskers help them decide whether spaces are big enought to crawl through.
Melanie Stetson Freeman / CSM
Equipped with whiskers, robots could soon get a better sense of their surroundings.听
Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley developed electronic whiskers from composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles, according to a press release from the Berkeley Lab.
The carbon nanotube paste serves as an electrically conductive network matrix that can bend. To make the medium highly sensitive to pressure or any mechanical strain, a thin film of silver was loaded on it.听As a result, the e-whiskers respond to a very small amount of pressure 鈥撀�, according to the press release.
"The strain sensitivity and electrical resistivity of our composite film is readily tuned by changing the composition ratio of the carbon nanotubes and the silver nano particles," 聽said Ali Javey, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab鈥檚 Materials Sciences Division, who led the research."The composite can then be painted or printed onto high-aspect-ratio elastic fibers to form e-whiskers that can be integrated with different user-interactive systems."
The research group successfully used the electronic whiskers to demonstrate two- and three-dimensional mapping of wind flow.
Tactile hairs can be found throughout the animal kingdom. In cats, for example 鈥� whiskers help cats move around easily and gauge, as well as understand, their surroundings.听Some animals also use them to monitor wind and navigate around obstacles in tight spaces, said Dr. Javey, who is also a聽 professor of electrical engineering and computer science at聽UC Berkeley.听
The e-whiskers come with a "," he said.听
The findings have a wide range of applications for advanced robotics, human-machine user interfaces, and biological applications, said Javey.
A paper on the research findings, titled 鈥淗ighly sensitive electronic whiskers based on patterned carbon nanotube and silver nanoparticle composite films," was .The research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.