Emergence of Biped Robot Locomotion through Neural Entrainment

Abstract

This study focuses on emergence of biped robot locomotion based on the concept called‘Global Entrainment.’Originally, this concept was proposed as a principle of human locomotion emergence; locomotion is self-organized as limit cycles of the coupled dynamical systems, which consist of the neurons, body and environment. In this paper, the author designs the neural system using computer simulations of the biped robot at first. With the designed neural system, the simulated robot steps with oscillatory motion in the lateral plane, and then starts to walk. It is also investigated that the realized locomotion has adaptability to changes of the robot and environment models. The last experiment shows that the real robot is able to walk in the same way as the simulations.