논문 상세보기
pp.34-42
Rodents, specially rats, can recognize distance and shape of an object and also pattern of the textures by using their whiskers. Mechanoreceptors surrounding the root of whisker in their follicle measure deflection of the whisker. Rats can move their whisker back and forth freely. This ability, called active whisking or active sensing, is one of characteristics of rat behaviours. Many researches based on the mechanism have been progressed. In this paper, we test a simple and accurate method based on deflection of the whisker: we designed biomimetic whiskers modeling after a structure of follicle using the microphone. The microphone sensor measures a mechanical vibration. Attaching an artificial whisker beam to the microphone membrane, we can detect a vibration of whisker and this can show the deflection amount of whisker indirectly.
