Improving the contact instant detection of sensing antennae using a Super-Twisting algorithm

Sensing antenna devices, that mimic insect antennae or mammal whiskers, is an active field of research that still needs new developments in order to become efficient and reliable components of robotic systems. This work reports a new result in the area of signal processing of these devices that allows to detect the instant of the impact of a flexible antenna with an object faster than other reported methods. Previous methods require the use of filters that introduce delays in the impact detection. A method based on the Super-Twisting algorithm is proposed here that avoids the use of these filters and reduces such delays improving the impact instant estimation. Experiments show that these delays can be reduced in more than 50%, allowing reliable estimation of the impact instant with an error of less than 5 ms in many cases requiring a limited computational effort.