Where are we in understanding salamander locomotion: biological and robotic perspectives on kinematics

Karakasiliotis, Konstantinos; Schilling, Nadja; Cabelguen, Jean-Marie; Ijspeert, Auke Jan

doi:10.1007/s00422-012-0540-4

Cited by 55 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This salamander represents a good candidate for our design approach, having been subject to neurophysiological [19,42], electromyographic [43] and biomechanical [10,36] studies in the past. Its morphology is composed of an elongated body (trunk and tail) and four limbs located at the pectoral and pelvic girdles (figure 1 [36] and in detail in a doctoral thesis [44]. More specifically, walking gaits have been described in [36], whereas the data for aquatic stepping and swimming are original.…”

Section: Pleurobot's Design Methodology and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its morphology is composed of an elongated body (trunk and tail) and four limbs located at the pectoral and pelvic girdles (figure 1 [36] and in detail in a doctoral thesis [44]. More specifically, walking gaits have been described in [36], whereas the data for aquatic stepping and swimming are original. A comparison between animal and robot sizes is provided in table 1.…”

Section: Pleurobot's Design Methodology and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cineradiographic data for the axial movements of the salamander show that during steady-state locomotion (both in walking and swimming gaits), salamanders undulate mainly in the transverse (horizontal) plane; bending in the sagittal (vertical) plane was almost constant [36,44]. This reduced the problem of designing the robot spine to its optimal segmentation in the transverse plane.…”

Section: Spinementioning

confidence: 99%

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From cineradiography to biorobots: an approach for designing robots to emulate and study animal locomotion

Karakasiliotis

Thandiackal

Melo

et al. 2016

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Robots are increasingly used as scientific tools to investigate animal locomotion. However, designing a robot that properly emulates the kinematic and dynamic properties of an animal is difficult because of the complexity of musculoskeletal systems and the limitations of current robotics technology. Here, we propose a design process that combines high-speed cineradiography, optimization, dynamic scaling, three-dimensional printing, high-end servomotors and a tailored dry-suit to construct Pleurobot: a salamander-like robot that closely mimics its biological counterpart, Pleurodeles waltl. Our previous robots helped us test and confirm hypotheses on the interaction between the locomotor neuronal networks of the limbs and the spine to generate basic swimming and walking gaits. With Pleurobot, we demonstrate a design process that will enable studies of richer motor skills in salamanders. In particular, we are interested in how these richer motor skills can be obtained by extending our spinal cord models with the addition of more descending pathways and more detailed limb central pattern generator networks. Pleurobot is a dynamically scaled amphibious salamander robot with a large number of actuated degrees of freedom (DOFs: 27 in total). Because of our design process, the robot can capture most of the animal's DOFs and range of motion, especially at the limbs. We demonstrate the robot's abilities by imposing raw kinematic data, extracted from X-ray videos, to the robot's joints for basic locomotor behaviours in water and on land. The robot closely matches the behaviour of the animal in terms of relative forward speeds and lateral displacements. Ground reaction forces during walking also resemble those of the animal. Based on our results, we anticipate that future studies on richer motor skills in salamanders will highly benefit from Pleurobot's design.

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Section: Pleurobot's Design Methodology and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pleurobot's Design Methodology and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spinementioning

confidence: 99%

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From cineradiography to biorobots: an approach for designing robots to emulate and study animal locomotion

Karakasiliotis

Thandiackal

Melo

et al. 2016

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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“…Such experimental manipulations would be very difficult to perform in the tuna itself. Similarly, a physical model of the salamander enabled the testing of hypotheses regarding how central pattern generators (CPGs) can function to generate locomotion in water and on land with their vastly different mechanical constraints (Ijspeert et al, 2007;Karakasiliotis et al, 2012). Similarly, classic work simulating the neuromechanics of the lamprey (Ekeberg et al, 1995;Ekeberg and Grillner, 1999) has provided many systemlevel insights that continue to be pursued in physiology and mechanics (Kamali Sarvestani et al, 2012).…”

Section: Biomimetic and Bio-inspired Physical Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomimetic and bio-inspired robotics in electric fish research

Neveln

Bai

Snyder

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SummaryWeakly electric knifefish have intrigued both biologists and engineers for decades with their unique electrosensory system and agile swimming mechanics. Study of these fish has resulted in models that illuminate the principles behind their electrosensory system and unique swimming abilities. These models have uncovered the mechanisms by which knifefish generate thrust for swimming forward and backward, hovering, and heaving dorsally using a ventral elongated median fin. Engineered active electrosensory models inspired by electric fish allow for close-range sensing in turbid waters where other sensing modalities fail. Artificial electrosense is capable of aiding navigation, detection and discrimination of objects, and mapping the environment, all tasks for which the fish use electrosense extensively. While robotic ribbon fin and artificial electrosense research has been pursued separately to reduce complications that arise when they are combined, electric fish have succeeded in their ecological niche through close coupling of their sensing and mechanical systems. Future integration of electrosense and ribbon fin technology into a knifefish robot should likewise result in a vehicle capable of navigating complex 3D geometries unreachable with current underwater vehicles, as well as provide insights into how to design mobile robots that integrate high bandwidth sensing with highly responsive multidirectional movement.

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“…There has been a definitive shift from human-centered robotics towards the development of amphibious, arboreal, or drone mobility and orientations that are more efficient for transportation and labor-intensive tasks in a human environment. Current research on cybernetic modeling aims to simulate movements of quadrupeds or other entomological organisms that can move through various levels and densities of physical media [26]. Frank Grasso has already applied the term biomimetic, in the US Navy-funded project Robolobsters [27], to design environmentally decisive robots that can defuse a bomb, serve functions of physical defense, or even perform lower-level functions such as cleaning polluted sub-marine locations.…”

Section: Systems Ecopoiesismentioning

confidence: 99%