# Whisker-Inspired Tactile Sensing: A Sim2Real Approach for Precise Underwater Contact Tracking

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.14005 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14005/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Solving Rubik's Cube with a Robot Hand](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.07113/) (2019)
- [Learning Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00177/) (2018)
- [Learning Quadrupedal Locomotion over Challenging Terrain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11251/) (2020)
- [Sim-to-Real Transfer in Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotics: a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.13303/) (2020)
- [Sim-to-Real: Learning Agile Locomotion For Quadruped Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.10332/) (2018)
- [Learning Agile Robotic Locomotion Skills by Imitating Animals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00784/) (2020)
- [RL-CycleGAN: Reinforcement Learning Aware Simulation-To-Real](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09001/) (2020)
- [Deep Drone Acrobatics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05768/) (2020)
- [Approximate Convex Decomposition for 3D Meshes with Collision-Aware Concavity and Tree Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.02961/) (2022)
- [Continual Reinforcement Learning deployed in Real-life using Policy Distillation and Sim2Real Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04452/) (2019)
- [Inferring the Material Properties of Granular Media for Robotic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08032/) (2020)
- [Sonicverse: A Multisensory Simulation Platform for Embodied Household Agents that See and Hear](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00923/) (2023)
- [Whisker-Inspired Tactile Sensing for Contact Localization on Robot Manipulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.12387/) (2022)
- [Navigation and 3D Surface Reconstruction from Passive Whisker Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06038/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Tactile Memory with Soft Robot: Robust Object Insertion via Masked Encoding and Soft Wrist](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.19275/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Aquatic mammals, such as pinnipeds, utilize their whiskers to detect and discriminate objects and analyze water movements, inspiring the development of robotic whiskers for sensing contacts, surfaces, and water flows. We present the design and application of underwater whisker sensors based on Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) technology. These passive whiskers are mounted along the robot's exterior to sense its surroundings through light, non-intrusive contacts. For contact tracking, we employ a sim-to-real learning framework, which involves extensive data collection in simulation followed by a sim-to-real calibration process to transfer the model trained in simulation to the real world. Experiments with whiskers immersed in water indicate that our approach can track contact points with an accuracy of <2 mm, without requiring precise robot proprioception. We demonstrate that the approach also generalizes to unseen objects.