The Bio-Inspired SCORPION Robot: Design,Control & Lessons Learned

Abstract

The PCR-approach showed that it is possible to define models for the low-level biological motoric concepts and combine them, so that they can be used with a behaviour-based control approach in a flexible way. The control of the posture, while the system is walking, gives additional flexibility in comparison to the CCPG approach (Ayers 2002) or the Walknet approach (Cruse 1999). In addition, the combination of different walking patterns, e.g., for an omni-directional movement, produces a rich motion repertoire on the basis of a small set of elementary locomotion patterns which are defined with few parameters. But, recapitulating, none of the existing bio-inspired approaches including the PCRapproach yet is able to use the full motion potentials which walking robots have. Especially in very complex environments, e.g. steep slopes or the earlier mentioned random stepping fields, these reactive approaches show their limits. On the other hand, these are the environments, where the, in principle, higher mobility of ambulating systems in comparison to wheeled or tracked systems, would pay off.