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Bioinspired Whisker Sensor for 3D Mapping of Underground Mining Environments
Publicated to:Biomimetics (Basel). 9 (2): 83- - 2024-02-01 9(2), DOI: 10.3390/biomimetics9020083
Authors: Gomez, Virgilio; Remmas, Walid; Hernando, Miguel; Ristolainen, Asko; Rossi, Claudio
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Abstract
Traversing through challenging, unstructured environments, particularly in mining scenarios characterized by dust concentration, darkness, and lack of communication presents formidable obstacles for traditional sensing technologies. Drawing inspiration from naked mole rats, characterized as being skilled subterranean navigators that depend heavily on touch to navigate their environment, this study introduces a new whisker-sensing disk designed for 3D mapping in unstructured environments. The disk comprises a circular array of 32 whisker sensors, each featuring a slender flexible plastic rod attached to a compliant base housing a 3D Hall-effect sensor. The whisker sensor is modeled using both analytical and data-driven approaches to predict rotation angles based on magnetic field measurements. The validation and comparison of both models are performed by evaluating data from other whisker sensors. Additionally, a series of experiments demonstrates the whisker disk's capability in performing 3D-mapping tasks, along with successful implementation on diverse robotic platforms, highlighting its future potential for effective 3D mapping in complex and unstructured subterranean environments.
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Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Biomimetics (Basel) due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2024 there are still no calculated indicators, but in 2023, it was in position 31/53, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Materials Science, Biomaterials.
Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.
Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2025-07-07:
- WoS: 3
- Scopus: 3
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Estonia.
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (GOMEZ LAMBO, VIRGILIO AUGUSTO) and Last Author (ROSSI, CLAUDIO).
the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been GOMEZ LAMBO, VIRGILIO AUGUSTO.