Design methodologies for central pattern generators: an application to crawling humanoids

Abstract

Systems of coupled nonlinear oscillators inspired from animal central pattern generators (CPGs) are increasingly used for the control of locomotion in robots, in particular for online trajectory generation. Indeed, such systems present interesting characteristics like limit cycle behavior (i.e. stability), synchronization, and the possibility to be entrained and modulated by external signals. There are now good methodologies for designing systems that exhibit specific gaits, i.e. specific phase relations between oscillators, however techniques to modulate the shape of the rhythmic signals in a controlled way are still missing.