Biomimetic Motion Control System Based on a CPG for an Amphibious Multi-Link Mobile Robot

Robots and robotics technologies are expected to provide new tools for inspection and manipulation, especially in extreme environments that are dangerous for human beings to access directly, such as underwater environments, volcanic areas, or nuclear power plants. Robots designed for such extreme environments should be sufficiently robust and strong to cope with disturbance and breakdowns. We focus on the movement of animals to realize robust robot systems. One approach is to mimic the nervous systems of animals. The central pattern generator of a nervous system has been shown to control motion patterns, such as walking, respiration and flapping. In this paper, a robot motion control system using a central pattern generator is proposed and applied to an amphibious multi-link mobile robot.