Generation and coordination of bipedal locomotion through global entrainment

G. Taga et al. (1991) proposed that bipedal locomotion is realized as a global limit cycle generated through global entrainment between the neural system composed of neural oscillators and the physical system. Here, the walking movement is shown to be robust against spatiotemporal changes in environmental constraints such as mechanical perturbations and irregular terrain. It is demonstrated that synchronization occurs between two walking bipeds through simple interaction by means of an analysis of a phase response curve. This is confirmed by computer simulation. This implies that the principle of global entrainment is applicable to multilocomotor systems