Dynamical Wall Following for a Wheeled Robot Using a Passive Tactile Sensor

— Feedback from antennae – long, flexible tactile sensors – enables cockroaches and other arthropods to rapidly maneuver through poorly lit and cluttered environments. Inspired by their performance, we created a wall-following controller for a dynamic wheeled robot using tactile antenna feedback. We show this controller is stable for a wide range of control gains and robot system parameters. To test the controller, we constructed a two-link antenna that uses potentiometers and capacitive contact sensors. Experiments based on the prototype demonstrate that our controller robustly tracks unexpected corners ranging from −60◦ to +90◦ .

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Andrew G. Lamperski, Owen Y. Loh, Brett L. Kutscher, Noah J. Cowan
• Keywords: Dynamic Wheeled Robot, ICRA 2005, Robotics, Tactile Antenna Feedback, flexible Tactile Sensors