2907 Biologically Inspired Sensors

Saturday, February 19, 2011: 4:00 PM
145A (Washington Convention Center )
Chang Liu , Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Today’s engineering systems, such as machines, vehicles, robots, medical devices, home appliances and entertainment devices, are often sensor deficient.  Biological systems, on the other hand, exhibit great sensory intelligence.  Evolved over millions of years, biological systems offer many exquisite examples of sensing and intelligence. To start, many biological sensors are highly sensitive. They often offer vastly superior dynamic range, frequency response, adaptability, and low power.

The biological sensory intelligence has been the subject of study by biologists since the dawn of civilization.  However, most biologists have been isolated, focused discovery processes.  With the advancement in micro fabrication, it is now possible to mimic the structures and functions of many biological sensors at their native scales.  At the MedX lab of Northwestern University, we seek radically and exciting advancement of sensor technology through the bioinspired approach – seeking inspiration about performance, materials, and design from nature, building engineering mimetic devices, and demonstrate significant new capabilities and quantum-leaps of performances.

In this talk, I will present an overview of our work on development of biologically inspired sensors, including artificial haircell sensors and biomimetic lateral line sensors. The haircell sensor is a broad class of mechanoreceptors found in a large number of animals. They serve diverse sensing functions including hearing, flow detection, vibration detection, angular position detection, and frequency analysis. The Liu group has been developing biomimetic haircell sensor based on micromachining and MEMS technology, using both silicon and polymer materials.  The artificial haircell sensors have been successfully used for flow sensing, vibration sensing, and acoustic sensing.

The lateral line is a sensor organ on the body of fish – it consists of a linear array of exposed haircells, called neuromasts. The lateral line provides spatial-temporal imaging of the flow field around a fish body, allow the fish to detect the presence of obstacles, predators, and prey.

The MedX laboratory at Northwestern University is applying the biomimetic sensors for flow sensing and touch sensing, for medical-related applications.

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