Salamandra Robotica: A Biologically Inspired Amphibious Robot that Swims and Walks

One of the key characteristics of animals, perhaps the most impressive, is their ability to move. It is the result of millions of years of evolution, and its complexity, flexibility and energy efficiency are yet to be approached by robots. The control and coordination of many degrees of freedom in a robot is complex, and there is not well established technique to deal with this: on their side, animals often have hundreds degrees of freedom and use them with a surprising ability. The purpose of this project is to develop an amphibious robot whose structure and control are inspired by the salamander in two aspects: the biomechanical structure and the locomotion control. The first purpose of the project is to explore and develop new technologies inspired by the salamander. In particular, we aim at developing a robot that can robustly swim, crawl, and walk. The second purpose is to use the developed robot as a test-bed for neurobiological models in a real (as opposed to simulated) embodiment. Finally, with its multiple gaits, such a robot would be useful for inspection or exploration purposes in difficult environments (e.g., flooded zones, under collapsed buildings, etc.). The salamander, a tetrapod capable of both swimming and walking, offers a remarkable opportunity to investigate vertebrate locomotion. It is considered as closely resembling the first terrestrial vertebrates and represents, among vertebrates, a key animal in the evolution from the aquatic to the terrestrial environment [6, 18]. It also has orders of magnitudes fewer neurons than mammals [29, 30] and is therefore at a level of complexity that is more tractable from the understanding and modeling point of views. Finally, the central nervous system of the salamander shares many similarities with that