Object contour scanning using elastically supported technical vibrissae

Rodents, like mice and rats, use tactile hairs in the snout region (mystacial vibrissae) to acquire information about their environment, e.g., the shape or contour of obstacles. For this, the vibrissa is used for the perception of stimuli due to an object contact. Mechanoreceptors are processing units of these stimuli measured in the compliant support (follicle-sinus complex). We use this behavior from biology as an inspiration to set up a mechanical model for object contour scanning. In a plane, an elastic bending beam sweeps a rigid obstacle while the beam's foot passes by below the object. Prescribing a contour and a list of optional contact points on it, we apply Bernoulli's bending theory for large deformations in order to determine in a first step the elastic lines of the beam and the corresponding reactions of the support (the only observables in biology and technology). Taking these reaction values as data of a bending problem, an initial-value problem re-determines (within certain “measuring noise”) the starting contact points. This theoretical one-sweep scanning process is demonstrated by several examples, and their outcomes are compared to experimental results. The current confinements in theory and experimental setup and their removal are explained. A somewhat new topic could be to allow for rotationally elastic bearings of the beam instead of the usually preferred clamp. In contrast to other papers in this field, we deal with nonlinear theory throughout, follow analytical ways as far as possible, and use numerics only to find solutions of final finite equations.