Kinesthetic Sensing exploiting flexibility of the Ostrich’s Neck inspired Manipulator
Kazashi Nakano, Katsuma Inoue, Megu GUNJI, Hiromi Mochiyama, Ryuma Niiyama, Kohei Nakajima, Yasuo Kuniyoshi · The Proceedings of JSME annual Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (Robomec) · 2023
Animals achieve diverse touch sensing by combining kinesthetic sensing with touch sensing on the skin’s surface. Birds’ flexible necks contain numerous receptors, making them sophisticated sensors for detecting self-posture. Therefore, the flexible neck may have a contribution to touch sensing that involves interaction with the environment. We focuses on the pecking behavior of birds and investigates the contribution of neck flexibility to touch sensing, using physical reservoir computing. This study demonstrates that the dynamics of flexible structures driven by tendons can be used for object classification. Specifically, using time series data of joint angles for learning, we achieved three-class object classification with up to 75 % accuracy. These findings highlight the possibility that flexible structures can be used for sensing as well as manipulation.