This award, in the Small Grants for Exploratory Research mode, supports initial explorations of the use of acoustic conduction properties to differentiate among materials. The focus of the exploration is an initial determination of the potential for the acoustics-based approach to produce useful information about material properties, while invariant to object shape. Useful analogs will be sought from results on visual invariants. If it is found that there are acoustic features that are shape invariant, then longer-term research in this area may lead to new robotic sensing systems with more capabilities for guiding materials handling opreations.
