A small, autonomous, agile robot with an on-board, neurobiologically-based control system

For decades, insects have been a valuable source of inspiration for mechanical and control designs of legged robots. Anatomical and behavioral studies of insects such as cockroaches, stick insects and locusts have inspired the development of many robots. However, their control systems had to be engineered based upon behavioral studies and control hypotheses rather than neurobiology. Recent insect neurobiological discoveries now make it possible to control the legs of robots with a network found to control the legs of stick insects. In previous work this network we have dubbed SCASM (Sensory-Coupled Action Switching Modules) was shown coordinating the joints of a robot leg and adapting its normal leg cycle to irregularities in the terrain. We also showed that the SCASM network can be implemented effectively on a simple micro-controller with little computational power. This video describes additional sensory connections that, when added to SCASM, generate elevator and searching reflexes. We also show for the first time an autonomous hexapod robot walking over irregular terrain using a SCASM network to control each of its six legs and a Cruse type network to control its gait using only on-board, simple micro-controllers.