Minor Project FEEDBACK FOR STABILIZATION DURING SWIMMING IN LAMPREY AND SALAMANDER ROBOTS

This project aims to study and provide a method of postural stability control for lamprey and salamander robots during swimming. The robot swimming gait is induced by a central pattern generator (CPG) distributed along the spinal cord. Up to now the robot stability was fixed using surfacing lightweight materials. This research has prospectively explored the possibilities to mimic the vestibular vertebrate system integrating acceleration sensing into the CPG network. It investigated the different limbs and tail movements relevant to produce stability and to correct mainly robot rolling and pitch tilt. Different simulations were performed in Webots and then transferred to test the corrective effects of the network on the real robot. Progressive testing has provided sufficient information to discriminate efficient movements. The final implementation was tested during non-perturbed and perturbed swimming. However the last results were not significantly efficient compared to adequate controls. Nevertheless, the tests performed provided interesting information. It demonstrated that stability could be increased using the mentioned postural control method even if the new approach requires more tests and further investigations. The method was also extended to show the possibility of swim guidance in three dimensions. Thus this project has brought relevant approaches and it has opened a few new research questions and application.