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An organism's ability to move freely is a fundamental behaviour in the animal kingdom. To understand animal locomotion requires a characterisation of the material properties, as well as the biomechanics and physiology. We present a…
A major challenge in analyzing animal behavior is to discover some underlying simplicity in complex motor actions. Here we show that the space of shapes adopted by the nematode C. elegans is surprisingly low dimensional, with just four…
Animals adjust their behavioral response to sensory input adaptively depending on past experiences. The flexible brain computation is crucial for survival and is of great interest in neuroscience. The nematode C. elegans modulates its…
In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish from the small or basic life form (Escherichia coli, the amoeba, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and…
Multi-legged mobile robots possess high mobility performance in rough terrain environments, stemming from their high postural stability, joint flexibility, and the redundancy provided by multiple legs. In prior research on navigating…
Reorientation (turning in plane) plays a critical role for all robots in any field application, especially those that in confined spaces. While important, reorientation remains a relatively unstudied problem for robots, including limbless…
We develop a biophysically realistic model of the nematode C. elegans that includes: (i) its muscle structure and activation, (ii) key connectomic activation circuitry, and (iii) a weighted and time-dynamic proprioception. In combination,…
Walking animals, like stick insects, cockroaches or ants, demonstrate a fascinating range of locomotive abilities and complex behaviors. The locomotive behaviors can consist of a variety of walking patterns along with adaptation that allow…
How do we capture the breadth of behavior in animal movement, from rapid body twitches to aging? Using high-resolution videos of the nematode worm $C. elegans$, we show that a single dynamics connects posture-scale fluctuations with…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
Understanding principles of neurolocomotion requires the synthesis of neural activity, sensory feedback, and biomechanics. The nematode \textit{C. elegans} is an ideal model organism for studying locomotion in an integrated neuromechanical…
Organisms move through the world by changing their shape, and here we explore the mapping from shape space to movements in the nematode C. elegans as it crawls on a planar agar surface. We characterize the statistics of the trajectories…
The millimeter-long soil-dwelling nematode {\it C. elegans} propels itself by producing undulations that propagate along its body and turns by assuming highly curved shapes. According to our recent study [PLoS ONE \textbf{7}, e40121 (2012)]…
Animal behavior is often quantified through subjective, incomplete variables that may mask essential dynamics. Here, we develop a behavioral state space in which the full instantaneous state is smoothly unfolded as a combination of…
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…
Robots are becoming increasingly essential for traversing complex environments such as disaster areas, extraterrestrial terrains, and marine environments. Yet, their potential is often limited by mobility and adaptability constraints. In…
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…
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…
Animal behaviors are sometimes decomposable into discrete, stereotyped elements. In one model, such behaviors are triggered by specific commands; in the extreme case, the discreteness of behavior is traced to the discreteness of action…
Recent whole-brain calcium imaging recordings of the nematode C. elegans have demonstrated that neural activity is dominated by dynamics on a low-dimensional manifold that can be clustered according to behavioral states. Despite progress in…