How does a seal whisk its whiskers? That is the question a team of researchers at Professor Ajay Kottapalli’s lab in the University of Groningen in the Netherlands looked to answer — and the results could inspire a new generation of bioinspired robots.
“Our group has long been interested in bioinspired sensing — especially how nature solves complex sensing problems that remain challenging for engineering systems,” Kottapalli told Discover. “Seals are a fascinating example: they can detect and track prey underwater in complete darkness using only their whiskers.”
While the research is undergoing peer-review, an unedited version of the paper has been published in the journal npj Flexible Electronics.
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Seals Whisking Whiskers
Seals are excellent hunters, able to detect tiny movements in the water thanks to their highly sensitive whiskers. This enables the seaborn mammal to catch fish, even when the water is murky and visibility is severely hindered.
While seals’ whiskers have been the focus of previous studies, few have explored how the movement of whiskers — or “whisking” — benefits the animal. To investigate further, Kottapalli’s team created an artificial seal muzzle, complete with “whiskers.”
The robotic whiskers were able to imitate how a harbour seal’s whiskers move in real life. By using an artificial muscle made of flexible materials, the researchers were able to control the stiffness and movement with high precision.
The results suggest whiskers become more sensitive when they are protracted, or pushed forward. However, the position is more energy-intensive. Therefore, to save energy while retaining high sensitivity, seals pull whiskers back and move them rhythmically.
Jonathan Rossiter, Professor of Robotics at the University of Bristol, UK, told Discover, “This work helps to highlight how co-evolution of brain and body (whiskers in this case) helps an animal exploit its ecological niche.”
Rossiter, who was not involved in the pre-peer-reviewed study, said the results were “very interesting.” And added, “This is a great demonstration of how biological study and robotics come together, with each field of science informing our understanding of the other field….It is clear from this work that seals have ‘smart’ whiskers, and if we can reproduce them in future underwater robots, we could make ‘smarter’ robots.”
Creating Robotic Whiskers
The discovery could have real-life implications, particularly in the field of biorobotics, which incorporates technology inspired by nature.
“Biomimetic design is important because it allows us to learn from solutions that have been refined by nature over millions of years,” said Kottapalli. “Instead of reinventing systems from scratch, we can adopt principles that are already highly optimized for efficiency, sensitivity, and robustness.”
The team believes that robots with sensors inspired by seals could detect subtle movements in both air and water, enabling users to track trails left by moving objects. This may be a quieter, more environmentally friendly method of tracking objects using sonar, which relies on ultrasonic waves and can inadvertently disturb marine life.
Looking to the future, the team also plans to apply their research to land-based robots. The technology could enable these robots to navigate tight or dark spaces — or both — and may be a useful, effective alternative to cameras.
“This work highlights the power of combining biology with engineering,” said Kottapalli. “By studying natural systems in detail and recreating them using advanced materials and soft robotics, we can uncover principles that are not obvious from observation alone.”
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