Abstract

The environmental perception capability of underwater robots is critical for enhancing their operational per-formance and flexibility. Inspired by the biological structure of sea otter whiskers, this paper proposes a novelsensor based on liquid metal-enabled triboelectric nanogenerators, referred to as liquid metal-based triboelectricwhisker sensor (LTWS). The LTWS comprises key components, including carbon fiber tentacde, silicon capsulecover, trigger, memory alloy spring, sensing units, base, etc. The carbon fiber tentacle deflects to varying degreesin response to external forces, driving contact and separation in the corresponding sensing unit, which generateselectrical signals. The LTWS exhibits high sensitivity to whisker displacement changes (7.9 mV/mm) and theoutput signal is basically unaffected by the touch frequency, ensuring the consistency and reliability of the signalunder different operating conditions. In addition, LTWS can also be used for flow velocity measurement andcollision detection in underwater environments, providing underwater robots with extended detection capabil-ities in low visibility and high background noise environments by purely tactile means, providing a novel methodfor ocean data collection.