Using a CPG to make Robots Belly Dance

Posted 20 Jan 2004 at 22:02 UTC by steve

Central Pattern Generators are networks of neurons that allow vertebrates to perform certain types of movement without the involvement of the brain. In humans, a CPG is thought to produce walking motions. A CPG in chickens allows them to run around after their heads are cut off. Inspired by CPGs and Lucy Liu, researcher Jimmy Or of the Humanoid Research Institute at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan has used software that simulates the CPG of a lamprey (possibly the Ekeberg / Ijspeert lamprey CPG?) to build a robot that can belly dance. The full story appears in a recent Nature Science Update. For more on CPGs, see Central Pattern Generators (PDF format) by Scott L. Hooper.

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More on the Belly Dancing robot, posted 20 Jan 2004 at 22:39 UTC by steve » (Master)

Roland Piquepaille has written about the belly dancing robot in his weblog.

Oscillation and harmonics, posted 21 Jan 2004 at 07:42 UTC by motters » (Master)

The basic oscillatory nature of neural systems is frequently ignored by conventional NN research. When you look at EEG patterns they typically represent large numbers of neurons firing synchronously at a particular frequency.

The more you look at biological systems the more you find examples of oscillatory behavior on different time scales.