Abstract:
Robots lack the perception abilities of animals, which is one reason they can not achieve complex control in outdoor unstructured environments with the same ease as animals. One cause of the perception gap is the constraints researchers place on the environments in which they test new sensors so algorithms can correctly interpret data from the sensors.

One biological sensing type, the whisker, is very good at precise sensing in unstructured environments. In this thesis, I explore methods to increase the perception ability of the bio-inspired whisker sensor for robotic perception in contact mapping and airflow sensing. This exploration has led to the following contributions:

Whisker sensors that perform contact mapping in the presence of compliant surfaces
Whisker sensors which perform contact and airflow identification when both stimuli are present
An array of whisker sensors that can detect the heading and velocity of airflow with improved accuracy,
An array of whisker sensors which can define two airflow sources, such as wind during drone flight

Thesis Committee Members:
Sarah Bergbreiter, Chair
Zeynep Temel
Victoria Webster-Wood
Mitra Hartmann, Northwestern University