Motivation

Multi-legged animals generate highly adaptive locomotion in various environments. They achieve this amazing ability through the coordination between legs, i.e., interlimb coordination. This becomes especially apparent in animals with a high number of legs such as centipedes. Based on these animals, we are investigating the requirements for a simple, decentralized controller combining both open-loop oscillators and load-dependent reflexes to generate these patterns.

Approach

we construct the working hypothesis: interlimb coordination consists of two fundamental mechanisms underlying legged locomotion, i.e., body support and propulsion. Based on the working hypothesis, we extend our interlimb coordination control, which was previously designed for quadruped locomotion. In order to verify the new model, we developed a high modularity multi-legged robot as a robotic platform.