Simulation of Acquisition of Locomotion of an Infant Robot

The authors propose a simulation method to clarify the developmental process of human locomotion by using a model of an infant robot. The infant robot has many degrees of freedom. By making constraints and coordinating many DOF by using "intensions" such as "want to stay sitting," or "want to move more forward," etc., various motion patterns emerge according to a particular intension. In this study, this type of intension was given as the objective function and acquisition of motion pattern, and was simulated as an optimization or learning problem. In addition, dynamically changing the intension according to the process of development, caused the motion pattern of the infant robot to change, and it developed from sitting to crawling, toward locomotion. We investigated the process of this type of development of the infant robot with numerical simulations