Improving the Detection of the Contact Point in Active Sensing Antennae by Processing Combined Static and Dynamic Information

The design and application of sensing antenna devices that mimic insect antennae or mammal whiskers is an active field of research. However, these devices still require new developments if they are to become efficient and reliable components of robotic systems. We, therefore, develop and build a prototype composed of a flexible beam, two servomotors that drive the beam and a load cell sensor that measures the forces and torques at the base of the flexible beam. This work reports new results in the area of the signal processing of these devices. These results will make it possible to estimate the point at which the flexible antenna comes into contact with an object (or obstacle) more accurately than has occurred with previous algorithms. Previous research reported that the estimation of the fundamental natural frequency of vibration of the antenna using dynamic information is not sufficient as regards determining the contact point and that the estimation of the contact point using static information provided by the forces and torques measured by the load cell sensor is not very accurate. We consequently propose an algorithm based on the fusion of the information provided by the two aforementioned strategies that enhances the separate benefits of each one. We demonstrate that the adequate combination of these two pieces of information yields an accurate estimation of the contacted point of the antenna link. This will enhance the precision of the estimation of points on the surface of the object that is being recognized by the antenna. Thorough experimentation is carried out in order to show the features of the proposed algorithm and establish its range of application.

Arthro-Coda: Poetic Notes (Re)forming Patti Lather’s “Top Ten+ List: (Re)thinking Ontology in (post) Qualitative Research”

This poem forms a diffraction of Patti Lather’s article listing ten learnings from the ontological turn. This work is intended to be read alongside Lather’s original article, so the reader can appreciate how poetry and prose form and entangle reciprocally. Ostensibly coalescing as notes from a face-to-face, simultaneously video-conferenced meeting to discuss Lather’s list, this poem pulls together fragments from multiple intra-actions and pushes meaning apart, as do the human and other speakers it calls into being. It avoids dramatic claims to making a difference, but suggests an infinitesimal, insect antennae shift via the ways it may brush against the reader’s skin and increase awareness of the more-than-human. This may even activate a tiny wriggle-release from a stuck place. Lather’s list emerges through the narrows of poetic inquiry as changed, alternatively accessible, more intensely affective, yet still resonant with her advice and spiky with further, many-legged, tangential questions.