Special Issue Editorial: Robotics: Mechanics and Control of Locomotion

Maurizio Porfiri
2017 Journal of nonlinear science  
Robotics is transforming the way we progress as a society, creating technological opportunities that could have not been anticipated only a decade ago. For example, surgical robots are now routinely integrated in the medical practice, enabling doctors to perform complex procedures that would otherwise be hindered by traditional approaches. Similarly, unmanned vehicles are changing our capacity to access and monitor the environment, thereby fostering scientific discovery and engineering
more » ... ons. The main goal of this special issue is to present a coherent view into the potential of nonlinear science of informing and supporting robotics-related research. The collection of articles is largely focused around the mechanics and control of locomotion, an exemplary domain where nonlinear science naturally meets robotics. These articles are not intended to provide a comprehensive review of this exciting and active domain, but rather to demonstrate advancements in nonlinear science research in the areas of flying, swimming, and walking robots. Spinello and Fattahi study the locomotion of a multi-legged robot inspired by millipedes and centipedes. The high redundancy and robustness of the locomotion of these organisms are known to be critical to their ability to successfully explore unstructured environments. The authors propose a distributed mechanical model, based on sheardeformable beam theory, to explain this complex form of multi-legged locomotion. Variational calculus is leveraged to establish a control-oriented mathematical formulation, which is illustrated through numerical simulations. Computational analysis Communicated by
doi:10.1007/s00332-017-9387-0 fatcat:xgjj6mwkjvc2xbxskdwaupjl4a