1999 Volume 17 Issue 4 Pages 595-603
Animals change their gait patterns with environmental conditions. The adaptive changes of gait patterns can be observed in the experiment where a decerebrate cat was forced to walk on the treadmill. This experiment suggests that cats should memorize the locomotion pattern and adjust it in adaptation process. From this point of view, we control the quadruped walking robot to behave adaptively on the treadmill like this cat. For the control and adaptation law, we take the decentralized approach: each four limb is regarded as subsystem, and pattern generation and adaptation is achieved with only the local interaction among four subsystems. Such a system structure is supposed to be important on the adaptability and flexibility.
