Program in Translational Biology and Health, Virginia Tech 1 Riverside Circle, Roanoke, VA, United States of America.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, 1075 Life Sciences Circle, Blacksburg, VA, 0917, United States of America.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2020 Dec 7;16(1). doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/abbc73.
Encoding of sensory information is fundamental to closing the performance gap between man-made and biological sensing. It has been hypothesized that the coupling of sensing and actuation, a phenomenon observed in bats among other species, is critical to accomplishing this. Using horseshoe bats as a model, we have developed a biomimetic pinna model with a soft actuation system along with a prototype strain sensor for enabling motor feedback. The actuation system used three individually controlled pneumatic actuators per pinna which actuated different portions of the baffle. This prototype produced eight different possible motions that were shown to have significant effects on incoming sound and could hence function as a substrate for adaptive sensing. The range of possible motions could be expanded by adjusting the fill and release parameters of the actuation system. Additionally, the strain sensor was able to represent the deformation of the pinna as measurements from this sensor were highly correlated with deformation estimates based on stereo vision. However, the relationship between displacements of points on the pinna and the sensor output was nonlinear. The improvements embodied in the system discussed here could lead to enhancements in the ability of autonomous systems to encode relevant information about the real world.
感觉信息的编码对于缩小人造和生物传感之间的性能差距至关重要。有人假设，在蝙蝠等其他物种中观察到的传感和致动的耦合，对于实现这一点至关重要。我们以马蹄蝠为模型，开发了一种具有软致动系统的仿生耳郭模型，以及一个原型应变传感器，以实现电机反馈。该致动系统每个耳郭使用三个单独控制的气动执行器，这些执行器驱动挡板的不同部分。该原型产生了八种不同的可能运动，这些运动对传入的声音有显著影响，因此可以作为自适应传感的基础。通过调整致动系统的填充和释放参数，可以扩展可能的运动范围。此外，应变传感器能够代表耳郭的变形，因为来自该传感器的测量值与基于立体视觉的变形估计高度相关。然而，耳郭上点的位移与传感器输出之间的关系是非线性的。本文讨论的系统中包含的改进可以提高自主系统对真实世界相关信息的编码能力。
