Biomimetic Centering for Undulatory Robots

Biomimetic Centering Behavior for Undulatory Robots∗

Substantial work exists in the robotics literature on the mechanical design, modeling, gait generation and implementation of undulatory robotic prototypes. However, there appears to have been relatively limited work on closing the control loop, for such robotic locomotors, using sensory information from exteroceptive sensors, thus leading to more complex reactive undulatory behaviors. This pape...

A Conserved Neural Circuit-Based Architecture for Ambulatory and Undulatory Biomimetic Robots

The adaptive capabilities of underwater organisms result from layered exteroceptive reflexes responding to gravity, impediment, and hydrodynamic and optical flow. In combination with taxic responses to point sources of sound or chemicals, these reflexes allow reactive autonomy in the most challenging of environments. We are developing a new generation of lobster and lamprey-based robots that op...

Neurotechnology for Biomimetic Robots

Biomimetic vibrissal sensing for robots.

Active vibrissal touch can be used to replace or to supplement sensory systems such as computer vision and, therefore, improve the sensory capacity of mobile robots. This paper describes how arrays of whisker-like touch sensors have been incorporated onto mobile robot platforms taking inspiration from biology for their morphology and control. There were two motivations for this work: first, to ...

Neuromuscular control of reactive behaviors for undulatory robots

Undulatory locomotion is studied as a biological paradigm of versatile body morphology and effective motion control, adaptable to a large variety of unstructured and tortuous environmental conditions. Computational models of undulatory locomotion have been developed, and validated on a series of robotic prototypes propelling themselves on sand. The present paper explores in simulation neuromusc...