Research On The Application Of The Whisker Sensor For The Mobile Robot

With the development of sensor technology for mobile robots, whisker sensors have been studied by domestic and foreign researchers. A lot of researches which have been done abroad proved that whisker sensors have become an important component of the intelligent robot.Based on studies abroad and mechanism of whisker of rodents, the whisker sensor was designed and then with it the following studies and experiments have been done:1. The principles of whisker sensor made by international scholars and whisker's structure of rodents were put forward, and a novel whisker sensor based on PSD was developed,and the whisker sensor system based on PC was achieved,by which the motion of mobile robot could be controlled and real-time sensor data acquisition could be achieved.Then some basic experiments,such as texture discrimination, also could be accomplished.2.Based on the experiment of rat's whisker system,whisker's ability of texture discrimination was analyzed. Relying on the mechanism of texure discrimination,the time-frequency analysis was introduced to analyze the data from the experiment of texture dicrimination,and the related programme codes using MATLAB language were put forward.3.The scheme of the experiment,in which the whisker sensor was used to discriminate texture actively,has been designed.After the experiments,the data was analyzed in the time-frequency way.The result showed the ability and potential of the whisker sensor in texture discrimination.4.A local path planning for mobile robot was introduced,both in known and unknown enviroment.The information of the obstacle was gathered by whisker sensor, and the problem of robot obstacle avoidance with fuzzy control theory was solved.