Rat Robot Autonomous Border Detection Based on Wearable Sensors.

Bio-robots, a novel type of robots created based on brain-machine interface, have shown great potential in search and rescue tasks. However, current research focuses on the bio-robot itself, such as locomotion, localization and navigation, but lacks interactions with the external environment. In this paper, we proposed a new system for rat robot to autonomously explore the border of unknown field out of sight, and then get the boundary map. We invented a wearable backpack, which is an embedded system with laser-ranging sensors, IMU and ultra-wide band (UWB) module, for the rat robot. Based on the wearable system, a classification method for motion states based on random forest (RF) and a navigation algorithm based on finite state machine (FSM) were developed for the autonomous exploration of border and tested in the locomotion experiment. Besides, with the localization and distance data from UWB and laser-ranging sensors, we mapped the distribution of the border, using Ramber-Douglas-Peucker (RDP) algorithm. The results show that the system could effectively navigate the rat robot to explore the field and accurately detect the border. The accuracy of classification reaches 97.86% and the error rate of border detection is 5.90%. This work provides a novel technology that has potential for practical applications such as prospect for minerals and search tasks. .