TY - JOUR
T1 - Finding and identifying simple objects underwater with active electrosense
AU - Bai, Yang
AU - Snyder, James B.
AU - Peshkin, Michael
AU - MacIver, Malcolm A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The work is funded by the NSF (PECASE IOB-0846032), the Office of Naval Research Small Business Technology Transfer (grant number N00014-09-M-0306), with partial support from the NSF (CMMI-0941674).
Publisher Copyright:
© SAGE Publications.
PY - 2015/9/27
Y1 - 2015/9/27
N2 - Active electrosense is used by some fish for the sensing of nearby objects by means of the perturbations the objects induce in a self-generated electric field. As with echolocation (sensing via perturbations of an emitted acoustic field) active electrosense is particularly useful in environments where darkness, clutter or turbidity makes vision ineffective. Work on engineered variants of active electrosense is motivated by the need for sensors in underwater systems that function well at short range and where vision-based approaches can be problematic, as well as to aid in understanding the computational principles of biological active electrosense. Prior work in robotic active electrosense has focused on tracking and localization of spherical objects. In this study, we present an algorithm for estimating the size, shape, orientation, and location of ellipsoidal objects, along with experimental results. The algorithm is implemented in a robotic active electrosense system whose basic approach is similar to biological active electrosense systems, including the use of movement as part of sensing. At a range up to ≈20 cm, or about half the length of the robot, the algorithm localizes spheroids that are one-tenth the length of the robot with accuracy of better than 1 cm for position and 5° in orientation. The algorithm estimates object size and length-to-width ratio with an accuracy of around 10%.
AB - Active electrosense is used by some fish for the sensing of nearby objects by means of the perturbations the objects induce in a self-generated electric field. As with echolocation (sensing via perturbations of an emitted acoustic field) active electrosense is particularly useful in environments where darkness, clutter or turbidity makes vision ineffective. Work on engineered variants of active electrosense is motivated by the need for sensors in underwater systems that function well at short range and where vision-based approaches can be problematic, as well as to aid in understanding the computational principles of biological active electrosense. Prior work in robotic active electrosense has focused on tracking and localization of spherical objects. In this study, we present an algorithm for estimating the size, shape, orientation, and location of ellipsoidal objects, along with experimental results. The algorithm is implemented in a robotic active electrosense system whose basic approach is similar to biological active electrosense systems, including the use of movement as part of sensing. At a range up to ≈20 cm, or about half the length of the robot, the algorithm localizes spheroids that are one-tenth the length of the robot with accuracy of better than 1 cm for position and 5° in orientation. The algorithm estimates object size and length-to-width ratio with an accuracy of around 10%.
KW - Artificial electrosense
KW - active sensing
KW - object identification
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U2 - 10.1177/0278364915569813
DO - 10.1177/0278364915569813
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84940100369
SN - 0278-3649
VL - 34
SP - 1255
EP - 1277
JO - International Journal of Robotics Research
JF - International Journal of Robotics Research
IS - 10
ER -