No abstract

Animals can adjust movement pattern to balance the outside disturbance to keep stability. In this paper a rat Rattus norregicus was focused to study its balancing strategy to lateral impact. A pendulum was used to strike lateral thorax and lateral abdomen of the animal. Locomotion behavior was recorded by a high speed camera and ground reaction forces were measured by 3-dimensional forces sensors array synchronously during the whole progress of impact and adjustment. The result showed that the balancing strategy to lateral impact in a rat was closely related to the striked position of the body. The rat bent flexible body to absorb the impact energy when encountering the lateral thorax strike, and it resisted the impact force and torque through its side-sway and left leg supporting when encountering the lateral abdomen strike. Animal spent less time on side-sway than on body bending during imergency buffer, but it spent more time on side-sway than on body bending when reverting to original locomotion gait. Balancing strategy to lateral impact in a rat can be inspired to improve the robustness of bionic robot.