Robot Unravels the Mystery of Walking

manchineel writes with a link to a BBC article on the lessons learned from a project in locomotive robotics. 'Runbot', as it is known, is the result of a modern technology combined with a 1930s physiology study into human locomotion. The study found that walking is largely an automatic process; we only engage our brains when we have to navigate around an obstacle or deal with rough terrain. "The basic walking steps of Runbot, which has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe, are controlled by reflex information received by peripheral sensors on the joints and feet of the robot, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the pitch of the machine. These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of local circuits - which analyse the information and make adjustments to the gait of the robot in real time."

Comments

Cats do more or less the same thing

[sokoban]

I remember from my animal physiology classes seeing experiments about how cats walk. Apparently quite a few of the nerves which control the muscles used for walking can be severed prior to the dorsal root ganglion, and when placed on a treadmill the cats will still walk just fine even though there is no signal going from the brain to the muscles themselves.