An artificial fish lateral line sensory system composed of modular pressure sensor blocks

The lateral line sensory system found in fish and other aquatic organisms is believed to aid in various behavioral activities such as station keeping and wall detection. This paper presents results for an artificial lateral line designed for use in an underwater vehicle. Algorithms for leveraging this system to estimate hydrodynamic forces and for wall detection are presented and experimentally validated. Three sensor setups were built, two with fixed sensor positions and one with a novel, modular sensor block approach. The modular realization allows for flexibility in testing and can be integrated into the control system of the autonomous underwater vehicle built by our group. These lateral line sensory systems were experimentally validated and the results are presented.