Decentralized Control Scheme for Centipede Locomotion Based on Local Reflexes
Centipedes exhibit adaptive locomotion via coordination of their numerous legs. In this study, we aimed to clarify the inter-limb coordination mechanism by focusing on autonomous decentralized control. Based on our working hypothesis that physical interac
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Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Japan {k.yasui,tkano,owaki,ishiguro}@riec.tohoku.ac.jp Japan Science and Technology Agency, CREST, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan http://www.cmplx.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/
Abstract. Centipedes exhibit adaptive locomotion via coordination of their numerous legs. In this study, we aimed to clarify the inter-limb coordination mechanism by focusing on autonomous decentralized control. Based on our working hypothesis that physical interaction between legs via the body trunk plays an important role for the inter-limb coordination, we constructed a model wherein each leg is driven by a simple local reflexive mechanism.
Keywords: Centipede locomotion tralized control · Reflex
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Inter-limb coordination
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Decen-
Introduction
Centipedes move by propagating leg-density waves from the head to tail through the coordination of their numerous legs [1] and can adapt to various circumstances, e.g., changes in walking speed, by appropriately changing the form of the leg density waves in real time [2]. This ability has been honed by a long-time evolutionary process, and there likely exists an ingenious inter-limb coordination mechanism underlying centipede locomotion. Clarification of this mechanism will help develop highly adaptive and redundant robots, as well as provide new biological insights. Autonomous decentralized control could be the key to understand the interlimb coordination mechanism in centipede locomotion, and several models based on decentralized control mechanisms have been proposed so far [3,4]. However, they could not truly reproduce the innate behavior of centipedes. This fact indicates that the essential decentralized control mechanism for the inter-limb coordination still remains unclear. To tackle this problem, here we hypothesized that the physical interaction between legs via the body trunk is essential for the inter-limb coordination. Thus, we constructed a model based on a simple local reflexive mechanism in which physical interaction is fully exploited. c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 N.F. Lepora et al. (Eds.): Living Machines 2016, LNAI 9793, pp. 545–547, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-42417-0 60
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Model
In our previous study, we proposed a simple local reflexive mechanism by using a two-dimensional model in which yaw and roll motion of the body trunk is neglected [5]. However, we consider that three-dimensional motion of the body trunk plays an important role for the inter-limb coordination, and hence, here we extend our previous model to the three-dimensional case. A schematic of the physical model is shown in Fig. 1. Each leg is composed of a parallel combination of a real-time tunable spring (RTS) and a damper, where RTS is a spring whose natural length can be actively changed [6]. Each leg is connected to the body trunk via a yaw joint to move the leg back and
Fig. 1. Schematic of the physical model.
Fig. 2. Effect of the loca
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