Abstract
CrunchBot is a robot platform for developing models of tactile perception and navigation. We present the architecture of CrunchBot, and show why tactile navigation is difficult. We give novel real-time performance results from components of a tactile navigation system and a description of how they may be integrated at a systems level. Components include floor surface classification, radial distance estimation and navigation. We show how tactile-only navigation differs fundamentally from navigation tasks using vision or laser sensors, in that the assumptions about the data preclude standard algorithms (such as extended Kalman Filters) and require brute-force methods.
This work was supported by EU Framework project FP7-BIOTACT (ICT-215910).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Diamond, M.E., von Heimendahl, M., Knutsen, P.M., Kleinfeld, D., Ahissar, E.: ’where’ and ’what’ in the whisker sensorimotor system. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 9(8), 601–612 (2008)
Evans, M., Fox, C.W., Pearson, M.J., Prescott, T.J.: Spectral template based classification of robotic whisker sensor signals. In: Proc. TAROS (2009)
Evans, M., Fox, C.W., Pearson, M.J., Prescott, T.J.: Whisker-object contact speed affects radial distance estimation. In: Proc. IEEE ROBIO (2010)
Fend, M.: Whisker-based texture discrimination on a mobile robot. Advances in Artificial Life, 302–311 (2005)
Fox, C., Prescott, T.: Hippocampus as unitary coherent particle filter. In: Proc. Int. Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN (2010)
Fox, C., Prescott, T.J.: Mapping with sparse local sensors and strong hierarchical priors. In: Groß, R., Alboul, L., Melhuish, C., Witkowski, M., Prescott, T.J. (eds.) TAROS 2011. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 6856, pp. 183–194. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Fox, C.W., Evans, M., Pearson, M.J., Prescott, T.J.: Towards temporal inference for shape recognition from whiskers. In: Proc. TAROS (2008)
Fox, C., Mitchinson, B., Pearson, M., Pipe, A., Prescott, T.: Contact type dependency of texture classification in a whiskered mobile robot. Autonomous Robots 26(4), 223–239 (2009)
Gopal, V., Hartmann, M.J.Z.: Using hardware models to quantify sensory data acquisition across the rat vibrissal array. Bioinspir. Biomim. 2(4), S135–S145 (2007)
Grant, R.A., Mitchinson, B., Fox, C.W., Prescott, T.J.: Active touch sensing in the rat. Journal of Neurophysiology 101, 862–874 (2009)
Hipp, J., Arabzadeh, E., Zorzin, E., Conradt, J., Kayser, C., Diamond, M., Konig, P.: Texture signals in whisker vibrations. J. Neurophysiol. 95(3), 1792 (2006)
Kim, D.E., Moller, R.: Biomimetic whiskers for shape recognition. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 55(3), 229–243 (2007)
Lepora, N., Evans, M., Fox, C., Diamond, M., Gurney, K., Prescott, T.: Naive Bayes texture classification applied to whisker data from a moving robot. In: Proc. IEEE World Congress on Comp. Int., WCCI 2010 (2010)
Melexis, www.melexis.com/assets/mlx90333_datasheet_5276.aspx
Mitchinson, B., Martin, C.J., Grant, R.A., Prescott, T.J.: Feedback control in active sensing: rat exploratory whisking is modulated by environmental contact. Proc. Biol. Sci. 274(1613), 1035–1041 (2007)
Prescott, T., Pearson, M., Mitchinson, B., Sullivan, J., Pipe, A.: Whisking with robots from rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine 16(3), 42–50 (2009)
Russell, R., Wijaya, J.: Object location and recognition using whisker sensors. In: Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation. Citeseer (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fox, C.W., Evans, M.H., Lepora, N.F., Pearson, M., Ham, A., Prescott, T.J. (2011). CrunchBot: A Mobile Whiskered Robot Platform. In: Groß, R., Alboul, L., Melhuish, C., Witkowski, M., Prescott, T.J., Penders, J. (eds) Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6856. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23232-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23232-9_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23231-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23232-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)