Mechanical Intelligence Simplifies Control in Terrestrial Limbless Locomotion
Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院机器人与智能机器研究所）；School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院物理学院）；George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院乔治·W·伍德拉夫机械工程学院）；School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院化学与生物分子工程学院）
Tianyu Wang, Christopher Pierce, Velin Kojouharov, Baxi Chong, Kelimar Diaz, Hang Lu, Daniel I. Goldman
Limbless locomotors, from microscopic worms to macroscopic snakes, traverse complex, heterogeneous natural environments typically using undulatory body wave propagation. Theoretical and robophysical models typically emphasize body kinematics and active neural/electronic control. However, we contend that because such approaches often neglect the role of passive, mechanically controlled processes (those involving "mechanical intelligence"), they fail to reproduce the performance of even the simplest organisms. To uncover principles of how mechanical intelligence aids limbless locomotion in heterogeneous terradynamic regimes, here we conduct a comparative study of locomotion in a model of heterogeneous terrain (lattices of rigid posts). We used a model biological system, the highly studied nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, and a robophysical device whose bilateral actuator morphology models that of limbless organisms across scales. The robot's kinematics quantitatively reproduced the performance of the nematodes with purely open-loop control; mechanical intelligence simplified control of obstacle navigation and exploitation by reducing the need for active sensing and feedback. An active behavior observed in C. elegans, undulatory wave reversal upon head collisions, robustified locomotion via exploitation of the systems' mechanical intelligence. Our study provides insights into how neurally simple limbless organisms like nematodes can leverage mechanical intelligence via appropriately tuned bilateral actuation to locomote in complex environments. These principles likely apply to neurally more sophisticated organisms and also provide a design and control paradigm for limbless robots for applications like search and rescue and planetary exploration.
A general locomotion control framework for multi-legged locomotors
Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院）；Emory University（埃默里大学）；National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学）；Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学）；Morehouse College（莫尔豪斯学院）；Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）；Rancho Research Institute（兰乔研究所）；Royal Veterinary College（皇家兽医学院）；University of Oviedo（奥维耶多大学）
Learning, locomotion, and navigation of soft synthetic snakes in three-dimensional, heterogeneous environments
Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign（卡尔·R·沃塞基因组生物学研究所，伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科学与技术大学机械与航空航天工程系）；Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校机械科学与工程系）
End-to-End Multi-Task Policy Learning from NMPC for Quadruped Locomotion
Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems (A2S)（人工智能与自主系统研究所）；Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences（波恩-莱茵-锡格应用科学大学）；Humanoid Robots Lab（人形机器人实验室）；University of Bonn（波恩大学）；Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence（Lamarr机器学习与人工智能研究所）；Center for Robotics（机器人中心）；Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems（弗劳恩霍夫智能分析与信息系统研究所）
First Steps: Latent-Space Control with Semantic Constraints for Quadruped Locomotion
Applied AI Lab (A2I)（应用人工智能实验室（A2I））；Dynamic Robot Systems (DRS)（动态机器人系统（DRS））；Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), University of Oxford（牛津大学牛津机器人研究所（ORI））
Descriptive Model-based Learning and Control for Bipedal Locomotion
Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber Physical Systems, Indian Institute of Science（罗伯特·博世中心，印度科学研究院）；U R Rao Satellite Center, Bengaluru, KA, India（U R Rao卫星中心，印度班加罗尔）；Visiting Faculty, Indian Institute of Science,Bengaluru and Plaksha University, Mohali（印度科学研究院访问教职，班加罗尔和Plaksha大学，莫哈利）；Cornell University, USA（康奈尔大学，美国）
Evolving soft locomotion in aquatic and terrestrial environments: effects of material properties and environmental transitions
Morphology, Evolution & Cognition Lab, University of Vermont（佛蒙特大学形态、进化与认知实验室）；Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University（康奈尔大学生物统计与计算生物学系）；Fluid Structure Interaction Research Group, Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute, University of Southampton（南安普顿大学南安普顿海洋与海事研究所流体结构相互作用研究组）
