Whiskery Experiments

Animals with whiskers use these large hairs to probe and sense the environment around them. Their connecting hair follicle contains lots of nerves, making them highly sensitive and allowing the animal to feel with the whiskers. These nerve endings can sense changes in air or fluid around them when the whiskers shift, and detect when there’s direct contact with an object as the whiskers bend. Mimicking this biological system, scientists have developed a ‘robotic whisker array’ using everyday objects – plastic straws, lego blocks and a hairdryer. The straw takes the place of whiskers and an air current is created by the hairdryer; sensors at the base of the straw monitor how the straw responds to changes in the air current by monitoring their movement and shape. Robo-whiskers could potentially be used for many medical applications for example keyhole surgery, where high precision and tactile feedback are needed.

Written by Katie Panteli

Katie Panteli

Writer

Katie, a Warwick Biomed graduate, works for a science-publishing house in London with some of the world's most respected scientific minds. She's most interested in human biology, anything and everything that makes us tick.

• Image of Minerva by Victoria Frost
• Advanced Digital Sciences Center, Singapore and University of Illinois, USA
• Copyright held by Victoria Frost
• Research published in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, August 2015