Home // International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, volume 15, numbers 1 and 2, 2023 // View article

Modeling of Animal Vibrissae: Adaptive Control of Multi-body Systems under Output Noise

Authors:
Carsten Behn
Moritz Scharff
Lukas Merker

Keywords: vibrissa; modes of operation; adaptive control; uncertain system; tactile sensor

Abstract:
The reception of vibrations is a special sense of touch, important for many insects and vertebrates. The latter realize this reception by means of hair-shaped vibrissae all over the body, but especially arranged in the mystacial pad around the snout. Latest research activities focus on modeling these sensor components to explain some biological behaviors/features (Technical Biology) or to investigate their usage for technical applications for, e.g., object surface and/or shape detection (Bionics). In contrast to these works, we focus on the modeling of the dynamic operation modes to be applied for dynamic scanning patterns of objects. We set up a principal mechanical model of a single vibrissa to describe these modes of operation: passive and active vibrissae. They are either used passively to sense environmental forces, e.g., wind, or actively, when they are rhythmically moved to scan objects or surfaces. Consequently, the vibrissa inspired model has to allow for stabilizing and tracking control as well, but yet being able to detect (superimposed) solitary excitations. Hence, the biological paradigm exhibits some adaptive behavior, and so must the controller: to be adaptive in view of both the randomness of the external signals to be suppressed and the uncertainty of the system data.

Pages: 11 to 19

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2023. Used with permission.

Publication date: June 30, 2023

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2660