Neuromorphic walking gait control.
We present a neuromorphic pattern generator for controlling the walking gaits of four-legged robots which is inspired by central pattern generators found in the nervous system and which is implemented as a very large scale integrated (VLSI) chip. The chip contains oscillator circuits that mimic the output of motor neurons in a strongly simplified way. We show that four coupled oscillators can produce rhythmic patterns with phase relationships that are appropriate to generate all four-legged animal walking gaits. These phase relationships together with frequency and duty cycle of the oscillators determine the walking behavior of a robot driven by the chip, and they depend on a small set of stationary bias voltages. We give analytic expressions for these dependencies. This chip reduces the complex, dynamic inter-leg control problem associated with walking gait generation to the problem of setting a few stationary parameters. It provides a compact and low power solution for walking gait control in robots.
Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA. sstill@hawaii.edu
Susanne
S
Still
Klaus
K
Hepp
Rodney J
RJ
Douglas
D000818:Animals; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D001683:Biological Clocks / Q000502:physiology*; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007866:Leg / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D012371:Robotics / Q000379:methods*; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology*