Robotic verification of a control principle that exhibits versatile locomotor patterns of myriapods

Abstract

Myriapods exhibit various locomotor patterns depending on their species or situation while walking. Some species walk by direct wave gait, whereas other species walk by retrograde wave gait. Furthermore, some species employ body undulation as well during retrograde wave gait for fast walking. Our research group hypothesizes that there is a common control principle underlying these body–limb coordination patterns. Our previous study using two-dimensional simulations showed that they could be well reproduced by a single control principle that describes a simple coordination rule between the legs and body. In this study, we developed a myriapod-like robot to demonstrate that the control principle is valid even under three-dimensional body motion in the real world.