Article,
Morphological Computation of Multi-Gaited Robot Locomotion Based on Free Vibration
Artificial Life, 19 (1): 97--114 (Nov 27, 2012)
DOI: 10.1162/ARTL_a_00084
Abstract
Abstract In recent years, there has been increasing
interest in the study of gait patterns in both animals
and robots, because it allows us to systematically
investigate the underlying mechanisms of energetics,
dexterity, and autonomy of adaptive systems. In
particular, for morphological computation research, the
control of dynamic legged robots and their gait
transitions provides additional insights into the
guiding principles from a synthetic viewpoint for the
emergence of sensible self-organizing behaviors in
more-degrees-of-freedom systems. This article presents
a novel approach to the study of gait patterns, which
makes use of the intrinsic mechanical dynamics of
robotic systems. Each of the robots consists of a
U-shaped elastic beam and exploits free vibration to
generate different locomotion patterns. We developed a
simplified physics model of these robots, and through
experiments in simulation and real-world robotic
platforms, we show three distinctive mechanisms for
generating different gait patterns in these robots.
