Whiskered Robot Rat For Search and Rescue

The SCRATCHbot robot will be demonstrated at an international conference during the week of July 1, 2009. SCRATCH (Spatial Cognition and Representation through Active TouCh) is lauded as the next step in robot intelligence. This is yet another robot based on a biological model.  In this case, the model is a rat. RobotNext has reported on robot rats before in a post on June 7, 2009.  That ratbot was designed to explore how robots could develop a form of intelligent behavior by moving about a room and learning to avoid objects.  It has a vision system, sound sensors, and whiskers.  SCRATCHbot would be able to search out objects using only its whiskers. It was developed by Bristol Robotics Lab.  Read the story in two articles linked to below.

scratchbot

Photo: SWNS

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — A team of scientists have developed an innovative robot rat which can seek out and identify objects using its whiskers.

Researchers Unveil Whiskered Robot Rat
Science Daily (press release) – USA
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:29:03 GMT

Dr Tony Pipe, deputy director of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, believes 'Scratchbot' could revolutionise the way use robotics in search and rescue missions…

Robotic rat can search for disaster survivors using whiskers
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:42:32 GMT

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