Adaptation of a Decentralized Controller to Curve Walking in a Hexapod Robot

Simmering, Janneke; Hermes, Luca; Schneider, Axel; Schilling, Malte

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-15226-9_26

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…HECTOR's computational hardware is distributed, with each body segment (prothorax, mesothorax, and metathorax) possessing its own computing hardware and sharing information via sparse connectives (Schneider et al 2014). Studies utilizing HECTOR have fallen into two general categories: demonstrating the utility of decentralized control mechanisms in leg control (Paskarbeit et al 2015, Simmering et al 2023; and exploring how hierarchical mechanisms may improve robot autonomy in challenging environments (Meyer et al 2020, Schilling et al 2021. Exploring decentralized control mechanisms does not refute the existence of CPGs and command neurons in the insect nervous system; indeed, no model could do so without experimental evidence.…”

Section: Controllers With Neuromorphic Organization: Mimicking the Ne...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A perspective on the neuromorphic control of legged locomotion in past, present, and future insect-like robots

Szczecinski

Goldsmith

Nourse

et al. 2023

Neuromorph. Comput. Eng.

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This article is a historical perspective on how the study of the neuromechanics of insects and other arthropods has inspired the construction, and especially the control, of hexapod robots.Many hexapod robots’ control systems share common features, including:1. Direction of motor output of each joint (i.e., to flex or extend) in the leg is gated by an oscillatory or bistable gating mechanism; 2. The phasing between each joint is influenced by proprioceptive feedback from the periphery (e.g., joint angles, leg load) or central connections between joint controllers; and3. Behavior can be directed (e.g., walking along a curved path) via low-dimensional, broadly-acting descending inputs to the network.These distributed control schemes are inspired by, and in some robots, closely mimic the organization of the nervous systems of insects, the natural hexapods, as well as crustaceans. Nearly a century of research has revealed organizational principles such as central pattern generators (CPGs), the role of proprioceptive feedback in control, and command neurons.These concepts have inspired the control systems of hexapod robots in the past, in which these structures were applied to robot controllers with neuromorphic (i.e., distributed) organization, but not neuromorphic computational units (i.e., neurons) or computational hardware (i.e., hardware-accelerated neurons). Presently, several hexapod robots are controlled with neuromorphic computational units with or without neuromorphic organization, almost always without neuromorphic hardware. In the near future, we expect to see hexapod robots whose controllers include neuromorphic organization, computational units, and hardware. Such robots may exhibit the full mobility of their insect counterparts thanks to a “biology-first” approach to controller design.This perspective is not a comprehensive review of the neuroscientific literature but is meant to give a gentle introduction into the principles that underlie models and inspire neuromorphic robot controllers. Deeper reviews of particular topics from biology are suggested throughout.

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Section: Controllers With Neuromorphic Organization: Mimicking the Ne...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A perspective on the neuromorphic control of legged locomotion in past, present, and future insect-like robots

Szczecinski

Goldsmith

Nourse

et al. 2023

Neuromorph. Comput. Eng.

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“…But in addition, curve walking requires information concerning walking direction, for example, via visual input. Coordination of the different legs, appeared as a rather irregular pattern in biological experiments on curve walking, and is strongly depending on the curve radius [28]. The only biological data showing both temporal structure and trajectories of the legs result from [29], which have then been simulated for free walking in [1] and which will therefore be used for comparison.…”

Section: Fixation Of a Legmentioning

confidence: 99%

neuroWalknet, a controller for hexapod walking allowing for context dependent behavior

Schilling

Cruse

2023

PLoS Comput Biol

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Decentralized control has been established as a key control principle in insect walking and has been successfully leveraged to account for a wide range of walking behaviors in the proposed neuroWalknet architecture. This controller allows for walking patterns at different velocities in both, forward and backward direction—quite similar to the behavior shown in stick insects—, for negotiation of curves, and for robustly dealing with various disturbances. While these simulations focus on the cooperation of different, decentrally controlled legs, here we consider a set of biological experiments not yet been tested by neuroWalknet, that focus on the function of the individual leg and are context dependent. These intraleg studies deal with four groups of interjoint reflexes. The reflexes are elicited by stimulation of the femoral chordotonal organ (fCO) or groups of campaniform sensilla (CS). Motor output signals are recorded from the alpha-joint, the beta-joint or the gamma-joint of the leg. Furthermore, the influence of these sensory inputs to artificially induced oscillations by application of pilocarpine has been studied. Although these biological data represent results obtained from different local reflexes in different contexts, they fit with and are embedded into the behavior shown by the global structure of neuroWalknet. In particular, a specific and intensively studied behavior, active reaction, has since long been assumed to represent a separate behavioral element, from which it is not clear why it occurs in some situations, but not in others. This question could now be explained as an emergent property of the holistic structure of neuroWalknet which has shown to be able to produce artificially elicited pilocarpine-driven oscillation that can be controlled by sensory input without the need of explicit innate CPG structures. As the simulation data result from a holistic system, further results were obtained that could be used as predictions to be tested in further biological experiments.

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Adaptation of a Decentralized Controller to Curve Walking in a Hexapod Robot

Cited by 2 publications

References 18 publications

A perspective on the neuromorphic control of legged locomotion in past, present, and future insect-like robots

A perspective on the neuromorphic control of legged locomotion in past, present, and future insect-like robots

neuroWalknet, a controller for hexapod walking allowing for context dependent behavior

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