Tapered whisker reservoir computing for real-time terrain identification-based navigation

Abstract

This paper proposes a real-time terrain identification method for mobile robots using a tapered whisker-based reservoir computing system. Instead of relying on vision-heavy sensing pipelines, the method uses the nonlinear dynamics of a physical whisker to extract terrain information from contact signals. The work demonstrates a compact sensing and computation approach for navigation in unstructured environments.

Citation

Yu, Z., Sadati, S. M. H., Perera, S., Hauser, H., Childs, P. R. N., & Nanayakkara, T. (2023). Tapered whisker reservoir computing for real-time terrain identification-based navigation. Scientific Reports, 13, 5213. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31994-x