Study on Artificial Active Antenna

提出了一种基于昆虫触角的新型有源传感器系统(Active Antenna)。昆虫巧妙地使用它们的触角，以便在爬行、奔跑甚至保持不动时避免与物体接触。天线的特点是“灵活”和“主动运动”。基于这些对昆虫天线的观察，我们提出了一种只由四个组件组成的主动传感器系统，即不灵敏的柔性梁、位置传感器、扭矩传感器和执行器。我们展示了这个简单的传感器系统仍然可以通过对梁施加主动运动来定位不敏感的柔性梁和环境之间的任何接触点，而在没有主动运动的情况下它不能检测任何接触点。不仅考虑了直线梁的基本工作原理，也考虑了曲线梁的基本工作原理。研究发现，摩擦力对直线梁的传感没有影响，而对弯曲梁的传感有影响。我们还考虑了环境曲率对传感精度的影响。通过精确分析发现，只要推力角足够小，环境曲率对传感精度的影响不大。最后，基于该思想设计并开发了一套主动传感器系统，并通过实验验证了系统的工作原理。

This work proposes a new active sensor system (Active Antenna) motivated by insect's antenna. Insects use their antennae skillfully so that they may avoid hitting with objects, while crawling, running, and even staying still. The antenna can be characterized by its "flexibility" and "active motions". Based on these observations on insect's antenna, we newly proposed an active sensor system composing of only four components, an insensitive flexible beam, a position sensor, a torque sensor, and an actuator. We showed this simple sensor system still makes it possible to localize any contact point between the insensitive flexible beam and enviroment by applying an active motion to the beam, while it does not detect any contact point without active motions. The basic working principle was considered not only for straight-lined beam but also curved beam. We found that friction dose not influence on the sensing for the straight-lined beam, while it dose for a curved one. We also considered the effect of environment's curvature on the sensing accuracy. Through precise analysis, we found that the environment's curvature dose not give a large influence on the sensing accuracy as far as the pushing angle is kept small enough. Finally, we designed and developed an active sensor system based on this idea, and verified the working principle by experiments.