Perception
Whisker Sensor
A whisker sensor is a bio-inspired tactile sensor consisting of a slender, flexible shaft whose base deflections are measured to detect and localize contact, estimate surface shape, and sense airflow, emulating rodent vibrissae. Arrays of whiskers provide sparse but robust near-field geometry in conditions where cameras fail, such as darkness, dust, smoke, or optically ambiguous surfaces like glass.
Why it matters for physical AI
Pre-contact and light-contact sensing fills the blind spot between vision and fingertip touch, giving manipulators and inspection robots collision-safe exploration in cluttered or visually degraded environments.
Build physical AI
Put these concepts to work on real hardware
Axol is a dual-arm robot built for physical AI — teleoperate it, collect demonstrations, and deploy learned policies out of the box.