Tactile Bristle Sensors Made With Slime Mold

Slime mold Physarum polycephalum is a large single cell visible by unaided eye. We design an experimental laboratory implementation of a slime mold based tactile bristles, where the slime mold responds to repeated deflection of bristle by an immediate high-amplitude spike and a prolonged increase in amplitude and width of its oscillation impulses. We demonstrate that signal strength of the Physarum tactile bristle sensor averages near six for an immediate response and two for a prolonged response.