Bionic Tactile Sensor based on Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Motion Perception

Several species of terrestrial and marine organisms like seals, use their vibrissae (whiskers) as important tactile sensors to find and follow underwater wakes. Here, we propose a bionic-tactile sensor (BTS) based on triboelectric nanogenerator to capture complex stimuli by organisms moving through water, and utilize received signal to track the hydrodynamic trails. One of the BTS's essential features is that triboelectric nanogenerator coupled with inspired by the structure characteristics of seal whiskers, which leads to the highly-sensitive detection of stimuli. Another is that our design is self-powered without additional power supply. Experiments show that the designed BTS has the ability to perceive the hydrodynamic trails left by underwater moving objects. Moreover, the relationship between the output signal and the movement parameters is linear, and we use this principle to perceive the relative motion state of the moving object. These new insights into the biological basis of tactile perception using whiskers provides new design guidelines to develop efficient underwater robotic sensors.