Rat-like rescue robot uses whiskers to feel its way through rubble
Researchers developed rat-like robot which can crawl through — and under — rubble in search for victims trapped under collapsed buildings; robot uses long plastic whiskers at the side of its head to detect objects and radio back to a control center
More good news for first responders and search-and-rescue units. A new robot with artificial whiskers could be used to locate survivors of natural disasters, or people trapped in burning buildings. Developed by a team led by Tony Prescott from the University of Sheffield and Anthony Pipe from the University of Bristol, both in the United Kingdom, SCRATCHbot mimics the way a rat senses its environment (see this YouTube video).
Long plastic whiskers at the side of the robot’s head move back and forth up to five times per second to detect nearby objects. If a whisker touches something, control software determines the location of the obstacle and orients the robot’s head and body so that shorter bristles on its nose can make contact with it.
Sandrine Ceurstemont writes that many robots use touch sensors to supplement cameras, but SCRATCHbot relies solely on its whiskers to feel its way around. Unlike previous rat-like robots, SCRATCHbot adapts the way it moves its whiskers when it makes contact with an obstacle. The whiskers closest to the object will move less, while those further away make larger, sweeping movements to increase their chances of touching the object and identifying its precise position.
The next version of the robot will be able to discriminate between different textures, like carpet or a hardwood floor, and decide how to navigate based on the surface it encounters, say its developers.
SCRATCHbot was developed as part of the ICEA (Integrating Cognition Emotion and Autonomy) project, which aims to develop artificial intelligence systems inspired by biology. Although the main goal is to use SCRATCHbot for rescue operations, it could also help clarify how mammal brains control the movement of sensory systems such as whiskers.
