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Cyborg insects refer to hybrid robots that integrate living insects with miniature electronic controllers to enable robotic-like programmable control. These creatures exhibit advantages over conventional robots in adaption to complex…
This article describes a biomimetic control architecture affording an animat both action selection and navigation functionalities. It satisfies the survival constraint of an artificial metabolism and supports several complementary…
Humans and animals developed a sophisticated motor control apparatus and there is much evidence that it has a modular structure. The modularity offers a range of benefits, e.g. ability to learn dissociable motion styles without interference…
Legged robots can have a unique role in manipulating objects in dynamic, human-centric, or otherwise inaccessible environments. Although most legged robotics research to date typically focuses on traversing these challenging environments,…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
Humanoid robots are machines built with an anthropomorphic shape. Despite decades of research into the subject, it is still challenging to tackle the robot locomotion problem from an algorithmic point of view. For example, these machines…
C. elegans locomotion is composed of switches between forward and reversal states punctuated by turns. This locomotory capability is necessary for the nematode to move towards attractive stimuli, escape noxious chemicals, and explore its…
Humanoid robots that can autonomously operate in diverse environments have the potential to help address labour shortages in factories, assist elderly at homes, and colonize new planets. While classical controllers for humanoid robots have…
Recurrent neural network-based reinforcement learning systems are capable of complex motor control tasks such as locomotion and manipulation, however, much of their underlying mechanisms still remain difficult to interpret. Our aim is to…
With the fast and unstoppable evolution of robotics and artificial intelligence, effective autonomous navigation in real-world scenarios has become one of the most pressing challenges in the literature. However, demanding requirements, such…
Robotics would gain by replicating the remarkable agility of arthropods in navigating complex environments. Here we consider the control of multi-legged systems which have 6 or more legs. Current multi-legged control strategies in robots…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Mammals can generate autonomous behaviors in various complex environments through the coordination and interaction of activities at different levels of their central nervous system. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical learning…
Understanding the dynamical behavior of complex systems from their underlying network architectures is a long-standing question in complexity theory. Therefore, many metrics have been devised to extract network features like motifs,…
In a world designed for legs, quadrupeds, bipeds, and humanoids have the opportunity to impact emerging robotics applications from logistics, to agriculture, to home assistance. The goal of this survey is to cover the recent progress toward…
Elongate limbless robots have the potential to locomote through tightly packed spaces for applications such as search-and-rescue and industrial inspections. The capability to effectively and robustly maneuver elongate limbless robots is…
We analyze the dynamics of the neural circuit of the lamprey central pattern generator (CPG). This analysis provides insights into how neural interactions form oscillators and enable spontaneous oscillations in a network of damped…
This paper presents a soft earthworm robot that is capable of both efficient locomotion and obstacle avoidance. The robot is designed to replicate the unique locomotion mechanisms of earthworms, which enable them to move through narrow and…
Our understanding of the neural basis of locomotor behavior can be informed by careful quantification of animal movement. Classical descriptions of legged locomotion have defined discrete locomotor gaits, characterized by distinct patterns…
As both legged robots and embedded compute have become more capable, researchers have started to focus on field deployment of these robots. Robust autonomy in unstructured environments requires perception of the world around the robot in…