title: Reactive underwater object inspection based on artificial electric sense.
abstract: Weakly electric fish can perform complex cognitive tasks based on extracting information from blurry electric images projected from their immediate environment onto their electro-sensitive skin. In particular they can be trained to recognize the intrinsic properties of objects such as their shape, size and electric nature. They do this by means of novel perceptual strategies that exploit the relations between the physics of a self-generated electric field, their body morphology and the ability to perform specific movement termed probing motor acts (PMAs). In this article we artificially reproduce and combine these PMAs to build an autonomous control strategy that allows an artificial electric sensor to find electrically contrasted objects, and to orbit around them based on a minimum set of measurements and simple reactive feedback control laws of the probe's motion. The approach does not require any simulation models and could be implemented on an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with artificial electric sense. The AUV has only to satisfy certain simple geometric properties, such as bi-laterally (left/right) symmetrical electrodes and possess a reasonably high aspect (length/width) ratio.
authors.affiliation: UMR_C 6597 Institut de Recherche en Communications et Cybernétique de Nantes (IRCCyN), 1 rue de la Noë BP 92101, 44321 Nantes Cedex 3 - France.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lebastard
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boyer
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lanneau
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D021522:Bioartificial Organs; D040761:Biomimetic Materials; D004555:Electric Fish / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D004557:Electric Organ / Q000502:physiology*; D005246:Feedback; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D007101:Immersion; D009068:Movement; D012677:Sensation; D012858:Size Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D014867:Water