Robotic locomotion combining Central Pattern Generators and reflexes

Abstract

All the work carried during the past year would not be possible without the help, understanding and support from many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my adviser Prof. Cristina Santos, who allowed me the possibility to integrate the CAR (Control, Automation and Robotics) group of the ALGORITMI center. I am extremely grateful for her dedication, support and constant motivation, providing me an excellent atmosphere to complete my thesis. I am sincerely grateful for her excellent guidance and perseverance, encouraging me to tackle the different problems of this research. The help, constructive criticism and advice that I received were invaluable to the final quality of this work, making suggestions that contributed to overcoming the difficulties that emerged during this journey. I would like to thank Prof. Lino Costa for the opportunity to learn new topics related with fitness evaluation. I want to express my gratitude to Prof. Auke Ijspeert, who was always available to help with whatever was needed, provided insighful discussions about the research and presented suggestions that helped me develop this accomplishment. I am especially thankful to everybody in the lab, for all the friendship and companionship that provided me with an excellent daily environment. A special thanks to João Macedo, who was always available to help me solve computational issues. I express my warm thank you to my girlfriend Bárbara for her support, dedication and patience during the last year. She assisted me when I was writing this thesis, giving me some insight to stay on track and complete this work successfully. Finally, I would like to thank my family, my parents and my brother, for their constant support, love and encouragement.

Autonomic Computing in a Biomimetic Algorithm for Robots Dedicated to Rehabilitation of Ankle

“…A stair climb generates several foot support reactions on the rungs, which submits bones structure to tensions that change along the way. Therefore, use biomimetics techniques in robots' development, seeks to produce robots that are more efficient (Ferreira, 2015). Because they will have puts into your project specific characteristics of living organisms (Habib, 2007).…”