Fiber Bragg grating-based biomimetic whisker for shape and texture recognition

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel shape and texture recognizing technique based on the design of bionic whisker. Whisker arrays are installed on both sides of the robot. In the experiment, the whisker sweeps around to detect the unidentified object. The center wavelength of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) pasted on the whisker shifts when the whisker touches the obstacle. Shape recognition is realized by processing and further calculating the wavelength shift data. At the same time, the whisker sweeps over the surface texture, and the texture information is obtained by processing the wavelength shift data with the time-frequency analysis method. The results show that the whisker sensor can identify the three-dimensional profile shapes of contacted objects and the texture features of touched surfaces effectively.