  Robotic exploration under uncertain environments is challenging when optical
information is not available. In this paper, we propose an autonomous solution
of exploring an unknown task space based on tactile sensing alone. We first
designed a whisker sensor based on MEMS barometer devices. This sensor can
acquire contact information by interacting with the environment
non-intrusively. This sensor is accompanied by a planning technique to generate
exploration trajectories by using mere tactile perception. This technique
relies on a hybrid policy for tactile exploration, which includes a proactive
informative path planner for object searching, and a reactive Hopf oscillator
for contour tracing. Results indicate that the hybrid exploration policy can
increase the efficiency of object discovery. Last, scene understanding was
facilitated by segmenting objects and classification. A classifier was
developed to recognize the object categories based on the geometric features
collected by the whisker sensor. Such an approach demonstrates the whisker
sensor, together with the tactile intelligence, can provide sufficiently
discriminative features to distinguish objects.
