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The theories of aero- and hydrodynamics predict animal movement and device design in air and water through the computation of lift, drag, and thrust forces. Although models of terrestrial legged locomotion have focused on interactions with…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…
Synthetic bio-molecular spiders with "legs" made of single-stranded segments of DNA can move on a surface covered by single-stranded segments of DNA called substrates when the substrate DNA is complementary to the leg DNA. If the motion of…
Quadruped robots are often designed with rigid feet to simplify control and maintain stable contact during locomotion. While this approach is straightforward, it limits the ability of the legs to absorb impact forces and reuse stored…
Effective locomotion in nature happens by transitioning across multiple modes (e.g., walk, run, climb). Despite this, far more mechanistic understanding of terrestrial locomotion has been on how to generate and stabilize around…
Unlike their large-scale counterparts, small-scale robots are largely confined to laboratory environments and are rarely deployed in real-world settings. As robot size decreases, robot-terrain interactions fundamentally change; however,…
Designing a mechanism to mimic the motion of a common house gecko is the objective of this work. The body of the robot is designed using four five-bar mechanisms (2-RRRRR and 2-RRPRR) and the leg is designed using four four-bar mechanisms.…
Soil-dwelling organisms have evolved diverse strategies for efficient subterranean movement. For example, the seeds of Erodium cicutarium and Pelargonium species employ continuous rotational motion for self-burial, while the angled worm…
Many animals, modern aircraft, and underwater vehicles use streamlined body shapes that reduce fluid dynamic drag to achieve fast and effective locomotion in air and water. Similarly, numerous small terrestrial animals move through…
Animals achieve robust locomotion by offloading regulation from the brain to physical couplings within the body. In contrast, locomotion in artificial systems often depends on centralized processors. We introduce a rapid and autonomous…
Galloping is a common high-speed gait in both animals and quadrupedal robots, yet its energetic characteristics remain insufficiently explored. This study systematically analyzes a large number of possible galloping gaits by categorizing…
Snakes can move through almost any terrain. Although their locomotion on flat surfaces using planar gaits is inherently stable, when snakes deform their body out of plane to traverse complex terrain, maintaining stability becomes a…
Although commonly associated with limbless animals like snakes and fish, multi-legged organisms like centipedes also utilize undulatory locomotion. Whether these undulations are actively reinforced or resisted by the axial musculature…
Legged locomotion is commonly studied and expressed as a discrete set of gait patterns, like walk, trot, gallop, which are usually treated as given and pre-programmed in legged robots for efficient locomotion at different speeds. However,…
Legged robots have demonstrated high efficiency and effectiveness in unstructured and dynamic environments. However, it is still challenging for legged robots to achieve rapid and efficient locomotion on deformable, yielding substrates,…
Human locomotion involves continuously variable activities including walking, running, and stair climbing over a range of speeds and inclinations as well as sit-stand, walk-run, and walk-stairs transitions. Understanding the kinematics and…
Achieving robust legged locomotion on complex terrains poses challenges due to the high uncertainty in robot-environment interactions. Recent advances in bipedal and quadrupedal robots demonstrate good mobility on rugged terrains but rely…
Walking is a common bipedal and quadrupedal gait and is often associated with terrestrial and aquatic organisms. Inspired by recent evidence of the neural underpinnings of primitive aquatic walking in the little skate Leucoraja erinacea, we…
To traverse complex three-dimensional terrainwith large obstacles, animals and robots must transition across different modes. However, the most mechanistic understanding of terrestrial locomotion concerns how to generate and stabilize…
A distinctive feature of quadrupeds that is integral to their locomotion is the tail. Tails serve many purposes in biological systems including propulsion, counterbalance, and stabilization while walking, running, climbing, or jumping.…