Abstract
Despite substantial advances in many different fields of neurorobotics in general, and biomimetic robots in particular, a key challenge is the integration of concepts: to collate and combine research on disparate and conceptually disjunct research areas in the neurosciences and engineering sciences. We claim that the development of suitable robotic integration platforms is of particular relevance to make such integration of concepts work in practice. Here, we provide an example for a hexapod robotic integration platform for autonomous locomotion. In a sequence of six focus sections dealing with aspects of intelligent, embodied motor control in insects and multipedal robots—ranging from compliant actuation, distributed proprioception and control of multiple legs, the formation of internal representations to the use of an internal body model—we introduce the walking robot HECTOR as a research platform for integrative biomimetics of hexapedal locomotion. Owing to its 18 highly sensorized, compliant actuators, light-weight exoskeleton, distributed and expandable hardware architecture, and an appropriate dynamic simulation framework, HECTOR offers many opportunities to integrate research effort across biomimetics research on actuation, sensory-motor feedback, inter-leg coordination, and cognitive abilities such as motion planning and learning of its own body size.
Highlights
In neurorobotics, animals are more than just a source of inspiration
The results presented in this article are grouped into six sections, with each section focusing on a different aspect of intelligent adaptive walking systems in biology and technology
The sections ‘‘Muscles and Compliant Actuation,’’ ‘‘Distributed Proprioception of Posture and Load,’’ ‘‘Ground Contact and Load-Dependent Coordination,’’ ‘‘Spatial Coordination of Limbs and Omnidirectional Agility,’’ and ‘‘Modularity and the Decentralized Coordination of Multiple Limbs’’ provided an overview of the potential for integration of multiple lines of research on a common robotic research platform for biomimetic motor behavior, ranging from compliant actuation to cognitive functions. It has been proposed in the past that the goal of biomimetic robots is to ‘‘take inspiration from biological principles to design robots that match the agility of animals, and to use robots as scientific tools to investigate animal adaptive behavior’’ (Ijspeert, 2014)
Summary
Animals are more than just a source of inspiration. They serve as reference systems for many, apparently disparate computational competences such as: (i) reliable, resource-efficient, parallel and/or de-centralized computing in real time; (ii) autonomous, fast and robust decision-making in complex environments; and (iii) flexible coordination and control of many degrees of freedom (e.g., Ijspeert, 2014). It shows the mean magnitude and direction of the horizontal ground reaction forces (GRF), as measured in the study of Dallmann et al (2016) at a given time of the normalized stance movement. Ground reaction force measurements and parallel electromyographic (EMG recordings of the antagonist levator/depressor muscles of the middle leg in a stick insect (Figure 8A), Dallmann et al (2017) showed that: (i) the sensitivity of the G3/G4 CS is sufficiently high to sense the torque change at the CTr joint upon unloading of the leg; FIGURE 8 | Load-based inter-leg coordination in an insect.
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