Lecture

Investigating Sensorimotor Control

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Description

This lecture explores the investigation of sensorimotor control in locomotion using robots and mathematical models. It covers topics such as bimodal locomotion in water and on land, insect walking, undulatory swimming, physical models, gait exploration, and future insights. The instructor discusses the motivation behind using physical models, the distinction between simple and elaborate models, and the challenges in designing anchor models for locomotion. The lecture also delves into the coordination patterns optimal for insect walking, the role of adhesion in insect gaits, and the development of a physical model for bimodal locomotion. Furthermore, it examines the coordination mechanisms in undulatory swimming, the impact of local pressure feedback on intersegmental coordination, and the future implications of feedback mechanisms in locomotion.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mechanical engineering

Robotics: Topics in robotics

Related concepts (32)

Undulatory locomotion

Undulatory locomotion is the type of motion characterized by wave-like movement patterns that act to propel an animal forward. Examples of this type of gait include crawling in snakes, or swimming in the lamprey. Although this is typically the type of gait utilized by limbless animals, some creatures with limbs, such as the salamander, forgo use of their legs in certain environments and exhibit undulatory locomotion. In robotics this movement strategy is studied in order to create novel robotic devices capable of traversing a variety of environments.

Fish locomotion

Fish locomotion is the various types of animal locomotion used by fish, principally by swimming. This is achieved in different groups of fish by a variety of mechanisms of propulsion, most often by wave-like lateral flexions of the fish's body and tail in the water, and in various specialised fish by motions of the fins.

Terrestrial locomotion

Terrestrial locomotion has evolved as animals adapted from aquatic to terrestrial environments. Locomotion on land raises different problems than that in water, with reduced friction being replaced by the increased effects of gravity. As viewed from evolutionary taxonomy, there are three basic forms of animal locomotion in the terrestrial environment: legged – moving by using appendages limbless locomotion – moving without legs, primarily using the body itself as a propulsive structure.

Aquatic locomotion

Aquatic locomotion or swimming is biologically propelled motion through a liquid medium. The simplest propulsive systems are composed of cilia and flagella. Swimming has evolved a number of times in a range of organisms including arthropods, fish, molluscs, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Swimming evolved a number of times in unrelated lineages. Supposed jellyfish fossils occur in the Ediacaran, but the first free-swimming animals appear in the Early to Middle Cambrian.

Robot

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to evoke human form, but most robots are task-performing machines, designed with an emphasis on stark functionality, rather than expressive aesthetics.

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