Feature Extraction from a Static and a Moving One-Dimensional Voltage Sensor Line for the Electric Field-Based Determination of Object Size and Position in Aqueous Media

Hunke K, Engelmann J, Schneider A. Feature Extraction from a Static and a Moving One-Dimensional Voltage Sensor Line for the Electric Field-Based Determination of Object Size and Position in Aqueous Media. IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine. 2022;25(9):10-18.Biological beings perceive different signals from their environment through their sensory organs to estimate object size and position. In this work, the aspect of object localization and size is investigated in a detailed simulation study based on a simplified, analytical model of a weakly electric fish. These fishes generate a three-dimensional dipole-like electric field for object localization and communication. With the abstracted model of this bio-template, different features of a voltage profile that is obtained from an assumed sensor line (representing the voltage-sensitive skin of fish) were identified for the determination of object size and position. These features were categorized according to their suitability for measurement scenarios with a stationary or moving sensor line. On the one hand, some features are considered individually to obtain information about the object size and position, and on the other hand, a combination of these features create a distance measure which is independent of the object size

Motion parallax for object localization in electric fields

Hunke K, Engelmann J, Meyer HG, Schneider A. Motion parallax for object localization in electric fields. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics. 2021.Parallax, as a visual effect, is used for depth perception of objects. But is there also the effect of parallax in the context of electric field imagery? In this work, the example of weakly electric fish is used to investigate how the self-generated electric field that these fish utilize for orientation and communication alike, may be used as a template to define electric parallax. The skin of the electric fish possesses a vast amount of electroreceptors that detect the self-emitted dipole-like electric field. In this work, the weakly electric fish is abstracted as an electric dipole with a senor line in between the two emitters. With an analytical description of the object distortion for a uniform electric field, the distortion in a dipole-like field is simplified and simulated. On the basis of this simulation, the parallax effect could be demonstrated in electric field images i.e. by closer inspection of voltage profiles on the sensor line. Therefore, electric parallax can be defined as the relative movement of a signal feature of the voltage profile (here, the maximum or peak of the voltage profile) that travels along the sensor line (peak trace, PT). The PT width correlates with the object's vertical distance to the sensor line, as close objects create a large PT and distant objects a small PT, comparable with the effect of visual motion parallax. © 2021 IOP Publishing Ltd