Intelligent robots as artificial living creatures

This article introduces a multi locomotion robot, MLR III, which has multiple locomotion types, i.e., not only brachiating but also walking. Conventionally we have studied dexterous locomotion robots and their controller design. One is a simplified two-link robot, Brachiator II. This is an example of an underactuated system in which a robot mechanism has more degrees of freedom than actuators. The desired motions are encoded as the output of a target dynamical system inspired by the pendulum-link motion of an apes brachiation. The other is a monkey-type robot, Brachiator III. Brachiator III achieves a dexterous motion using redundant degrees of freedom. The motion is generated in an empirical learning process on an intelligent structure, on which the learning algorithm coordinates some primitive motions to generate the desired motion. MLR III is an extended locomotion robot that has multiple types of locomotions: brachiation, bipedal walking, and quadrupedal walking, similar to a monkey or gorilla. This article introduces the mechanism and controller design for brachiating motion.This work was presented, in part, at the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robitics, Oita, Japan, January 24–26, 2003