Animal Vibrissae Inspire Electronic “Whiskers” for Robots

If you have been following the news lately, you might have heard about a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists from a Laboratory at Berkley University who have been developing electronic whiskers for use in robots.

In this video is a brief overview of the technology from the news:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1a5e83
Video source: newsy videos  daily motion

As fascinating as this technology is, you are probably wondering logistically about the inspiration — animal whiskers, or as they are scientifically know, vibrissae. So the question is, how do vibrissae actually work and why are they so important?

Image Source: anniejay on Flickr

If you have a pet cat or dog, you have probably noticed vibrissae protruding from either side of their snout. One might easily dismiss these as decoration, based on the fact the human facial hair is essentially cosmetic. However in the case of many animals, vibrissae are an integral part of how they view and interpret the stimuli of there surroundings.

These highly specialized hairs, also found on carnivores, rats, beavers, seals and bears, are very stiff and are rooted deep under their skin. At its base,  there are touch receptor cells, as there are at the base of all ordinary hairs. Only here, they are in much higher concentration. Then since a vibrissa is long and very flexible, it is able to amplify a small touch at its end so as to be felt with high sensitivity.

Image Source: wikimedia commons

 It has been suggested by neuropsycologists that the size of a brain region devoted to a particular sense can be correlated to its relative importance in interpreting sensory data. In the case of dogs, 40% of the area of their brain linked to touch is associated with the face and a large proportion of this is then specifically for vibrissae. Interestingly, for each separate vibrassa, it can be shown that it connects to a separate place in the brain of a dog. Therefore vibrissa are an absolutely essential facet of their sensory perception.

Vibrissae are controlled by muscles that move them forward in a “whisking” motion as the animal approaches an object. As they touch a surface they impart information about the texture as well as its location, which can help in the recognition of an object or surface. Their sensitivity is even so great, that they are able to detect changes in air currents. As an animal nears a solid object, his motion pushes air towards the object, of which some is reflected back and picked up by the vibrissae. Thus they are able to determine the location of an object without actually touching it.

Now that you know how vibrissae work, and their importance to animals, you can appreciate how valuable an electronic version would be. If robots could be equipped to interpret sensory information in this way, they could be used to execute tasks which previously would have been impossible.

Julia Brown