Abstract
This paper describes a novel CPG-based control of legged locomotion that enables stable and smooth transition between periodic and non-periodic motion. To this end, we have rethought the design principle of CPG-based control, through which we have concluded that exploiting merely (periodic) "oscillatory regime" is not sufficient for satisfying our requirements. Thus, we have employed an "active rotator model", which exhibits the "excitatory regime" as well as the oscillatory regime. To verify the validity of our proposed control scheme, we constructed a simple quadruped robot and performed locomotion experiments. As a result, we demonstrate the ability to exhibit stable transition between standing and walking motion. Very interestingly, this result strongly indicates that the proposed method enables significant stable transition by exploiting spontaneous transition between oscillatory and excitatory regimes.
