Effects of Tarsal Morphology on Load Feedback During Stepping of a Robotic Stick Insect (Carausius Morosus) Limb

Goldsmith, Clarissa A.; Zyhowski, William P.; Büschges, Ansgar; Zill, Sasha N.; Dinges, Gesa F.; Szczecinski, Nicholas S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-38857-6_32

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The robot can also serve as a data-collection platform for biomimetic sensory feedback. Several studies have previously used biologically-inspired robots to investigate sensory discharge from campaniform sensilla (CS), mechanoreceptors on the insect exoskeleton that encode strain [24], [76], [77], [78]. These studies primarily focus on single-leg stepping.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A biomimetic fruit fly robot for studying the neuromechanics of legged locomotion

Goldsmith,

Haustein,

Büschges

et al. 2024

Preprint

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For decades, the field of biologically inspired robotics has leveraged insights from animal locomotion to improve the walking ability of legged robots. Recently, “biomimetic” robots have been developed to model how specific animals walk. By prioritizing biological accuracy to the target organism rather than the application of general principles from biology, these robots can be used to develop detailed biological hypotheses for animal experiments, ultimately improving our understanding of the biological control of legs while improving technical solutions. In this work, we report the development and validation of the robot Drosophibot II, a meso-scale robotic model of an adult fruit fly,Drosophila melanogaster. This robot is novel for its close attention to the kinematics and dynamics ofDrosophila, an increasingly important model of legged locomotion. Each leg’s proportions and degrees of freedom have been modeled afterDrosophila3D pose estimation data. We developed a program to automatically solve the inverse kinematics necessary for walking and solve the inverse dynamics necessary for mechatronic design. By applying this solver to a fly-scale body structure, we demonstrate that the robot’s dynamics fits those modeled for the fly. We validate the robot’s ability to walk forward and backward via open-loop straight line walking with biologically inspired foot trajectories. This robot will be used to test biologically inspired walking controllers informed by the morphology and dynamics of the insect nervous system, which will increase our understanding of how the nervous system controls legged locomotion.

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