What is the whole point of electronic whiskers? Surely we will not see existing animals getting such implants in the near future? Well, there has been robots in the past that resembled animals, so how about outfitting them with such whiskers? There are plenty of potential applications that one can think of, including offering robots new abilities to “see” and “feel” their surrounding environment.
Ali Javey, the leader of this research project who is also a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and a UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer science, shared, “Whiskers are hair-like tactile sensors used by certain mammals and insects to monitor wind and navigate around obstacles in tight spaces. Our electronic whiskers consist of high-aspect-ratio elastic fibers coated with conductive composite films of nanotubes and nanoparticles. In tests, these whiskers were 10 times more sensitive to pressure than all previously reported capacitive or resistive pressure sensors.” [Press Release]