Antennae are the primary sensory organs of insects, capable of precisely detecting tiny vibrations, magnetic field orientation, gravity direction, or chemical stimuli. Their sensitivity rivals that of human skin and even surpasses humans in some special functions. However, compared to simulating mammalian sensory organs, how to mimic the highly sensitive and versatile "detector" of insect antennae has been a challenging problem in the field of bionic electronics.
The structure and function of insect antennae sensory organs provide a design blueprint for the development of novel bionic sensing systems. Inspired by this, Professor Xu Wentao's team at Nankai University has successfully developed a neuro-morphic artificial antenna system, achieving tactile and magnetic field sensing functions similar to ant antennae nerve inputs.
Recently, a paper introducing this achievement was published in "Nature Communications."
a. Antennae of ants: tactile and magnetic field sensing functions; b. Morphological structure and encoding strategy of ant antennal nerves; c-d. Hardware architecture and information flow diagram of neural morphology artificial antennae system. Images provided by the research group.
The neural morphology artificial antennae system mimics the morphological structure, encoding strategy, and sensing functions of ant antennal nerves. This system utilizes electronic antennae sensors with a three-dimensional flexible structure to achieve highly sensitive detection of vibrations, deformations, and magnetic fields. It also employs flexible artificial synapse devices with adsorbed two-dimensional nanosheets to perform neuromorphic processing of sensory information. The connection method between sensor arrays and synapse device arrays simulates the architecture of biological receptors and sensory neurons, while the encoding method of sensory signals imitates the pulse coding strategy of biological mechanoreceptors. Ultimately, the neural morphology hardware achieves the recognition of spatiotemporal features of sensory signals.
a. Schematic diagram of ant antennae for tactile perception; b. Schematic diagram of neuro-morphic artificial antennae system for tactile recognition; c-e. Results of chess outline recognition; f-h. Results of surface pattern recognition; i-k. Results of material texture recognition. Images provided by the research team.
The experimental results demonstrate that this system not only efficiently processes sensor data with low power consumption but also sensitively perceives pressure, texture, and magnetic fields. When mounted on mobile robots or interactive devices, the system exhibits performance in tasks such as outline recognition, texture recognition, material classification, magnetic field navigation, and non-contact interaction that approaches or surpasses human perceptual capabilities.
This work utilizes neuro-morphic hardware and bio-inspired sensors to simulate the sensing principles and information processing mechanisms of insect antennae entering the nervous system, representing a milestone in the field of bio-inspired perception. It is expected to enhance human perception of the world and interaction with the environment, holding significant implications for the advancement of advanced robotics, augmented reality, intelligent interaction, flexible electronics, and other fields.
In the future, the research team plans to integrate soft actuators with neuro-morphic artificial antennae systems to achieve integrated perception and motion capabilities along with active tactile exploration.
For more information, refer to the related paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46393-7
