Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Bioinspired whisker transducers establish tactile sensing through elongated probes connected to base mechanoreceptors, providing minimally invasive access in robotic navigation environments and textural surveillance. However, the available electronic and optical transducers rely on the intricate processing of multiple measurement channels to decode the bending magnitude and direction from whisker arrays. Therefore, this article introduces a biocompatible, agar gel-made, vibrissa-like device with an optical fiber specklegram sensor embedded in its base. The hydrogel’s biodegradability, softness, and tailorable viscoelastic properties support its feasibility for biomedical applications. Furthermore, speckle pattern analysis performs fiber quasi-distributed assessment by evaluating the correlation coefficient regarding reference images acquired by a camera. Experiments reveal practical resolutions of ~0.7 mm and ~13° for displacement magnitude and direction, respectively, allowing for interrogating two vibrissae connected to a single fiber. Moreover, dynamic tests highlight the optical signal changes due to shape and textural effects. Such a biocompatible whisker enhanced by a sensitive and straightforward interrogation approach motivates future developments toward biomedical probes for intrabody surveillance and soft robotics.
Source: IEEE Sensors Journal
Author: Eric Fujiwara
Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)
Language: English
Topic: Advanced Fiber Optic Sensors
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,495
OpenAlex ID: W4402350536