Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
412860 Robotics and Autonomous Systems 2006 16 Pages PDF
Abstract

This paper presents the development of a biomimetic sensor, with the ability to imitate exteroceptor and proprioceptor functions of invertebrates, such as earthworms. A polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film is selected as the sensing element because it is flexible, highly sensitive and easy to be integrated in different shapes. Perforated PVDF strips are embedded in a segmented silicone shell of a crawling earthworm minirobot with the ability to elongate and contract, thanks to a smart configuration of shape memory alloy actuators. A 4-segment minirobot with a sensorised skin has been fabricated. Experiments on separate sensorised silicone segments and also on the sensorised minirobot show that the biomimetic PVDF-based sensors can detect both the external contact and the internal actions, thus imitating the exteroceptive and proprioceptive sensing capabilities of real earthworms.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Artificial Intelligence
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