Design of Multi-terrestrial Robot from Common Principle Underlying Animal Locomotion

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25630175
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Control engineering/System engineering
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: ISHIGURO Akio 東北大学, 電気通信研究所, 教授 (90232280)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): KANO Takeshi 東北大学, 電気通信研究所, 助教 (80513069)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: マルチテレストリアルロボット / 自律分散制御 / ヒラムシ / ヘビ / 生物ロコモーション

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we aimed to develop multi-terrestrial robots that can exhibit various locomotion patterns such as crawling, swimming, and flying in response to the environment. We tackled this issue by focusing on a simple principle that animals move by exploiting the various features in their surrounding environments as scaffolds. Our achievements were twofold: 1) We developed a sheet-like robot that can both crawl on the ground and swim in water, inspired by the locomotion of a flatworm having a sheet-like body structure. 2) Through a simulation study, we found a common control principle underlying crawling of land snakes and swimming of sea snakes.

Free Research Field

システム工学