An Amoeboid Locomotion That Exploits Real-Time Tunable Springs and Law of Conservation of Protoplasmic Mass

Takuya Umedachi; Taichi Kitamura; Akio Ishiguro

doi:10.20965/jrm.2008.p0449

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JRM Vol.20 No.3 pp. 449-455

doi: 10.20965/jrm.2008.p0449

(2008)

Paper:

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An Amoeboid Locomotion That Exploits Real-Time Tunable Springs and Law of Conservation of Protoplasmic Mass

Takuya Umedachi, Taichi Kitamura, and Akio Ishiguro

Department of Electrical and Communication Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-05 Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan

Received:

September 28, 2007

Accepted:

January 24, 2008

Published:

June 20, 2008

Keywords:

amoeboid locomotion, softness of the body, the law of conservation of protoplasmic mass, morphological computation

Abstract

The control and mechanical systems of an embodied agent should be tightly coupled so as to emerge useful functionalities such as adaptivity. This indicates that the mechanical system as well as the control system should be responsible for a certain amount of computation for generating the behavior. However, there still leaves much to be understood about how such “computational offloading” from the control system to the mechanical system can be achieved. In order to intensively investigate this, here we particularly focus on the “softness” of the body, and show how the computational offloading derived from this property is exploited to simplify the control system and to increase the degree of adaptivity. To this end, we employ a two-dimensional amoeboid robot as a practical example, consisting of incompressive fluid (i.e. protoplasm) covered with an outer skin composed of a network of real-time tunable springs. Preliminary simulation results show that the exploitation of the “long-distant interaction” stemming from “the law of conservation of protoplasmic mass” allows us to simplify the control mechanism; and that adaptive amoeboid locomotion can be realized without the need of a central controller. The results obtained are expected to shed light on how control and mechanical systems should be coupled, and what the “brain-body-interaction” carefully designed brings to the resulting behavior.

Cite this article as:

T. Umedachi, T. Kitamura, and A. Ishiguro, “An Amoeboid Locomotion That Exploits Real-Time Tunable Springs and Law of Conservation of Protoplasmic Mass,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.20 No.3, pp. 449-455, 2008.

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References

[1] R. Pfeifer and C. Scheier, “Understanding Intelligence,” The MIT Press, 1999.
[2] H. Asama et al., “System Principle on Emergence of Mobiligence and Its Engineering Realization,” in Proc. of the 2003 IEEE/RSJ IROS, 2003, Las Vegas, Nevada, pp. 1715-1720.
[3] R. Pfeifer and F. Iida, “Morphological Computation: Connecting Body, Brain and Environment,” Japanese Scientific Monthly, 58-2, pp. 48-54, 2005.
[4] S. A.Wainwright, “Axis and Circumference: The Cylindrical Shape of Plants and Animals,” Harvard Univ. Press, 1988.
[5] R. Kobayashi, A. Tero, and T. Nagasaki, “Mathematical Model for Rhythmic Protoplasmic Movement in the True Slime Mold,” Mathematical Biology, Vol.53, pp. 273-286, 2006.
[6] J. Oda, A. Wang, and N. Matsumoto, “Trial Formation of Variable-Stiffness Spring and Its Application to Displacement Control Problems,” Transactions of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, C, Vol.59, pp. 2526-2531, 1993 (in Japanese).
[7] A. Takamatsu, R. Tanaka, H. Yamada, T. Nakagaki, T. Fujii, and I. Endo, “Spatio-temporal symmetry in rings of coupled biological oscillators of Physarum plasmodium,” Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol.87, 078102, 2001.
[8] A. Ishiguro and T. Kawakatsu, “How Should Control and Body Systems be Coupled? —A Robotic Case Study—,” in F. Iida, R. Pfeifer, L. Steels, and Y. Kuniyoshi (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, pp. 107-118, 2004.
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This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationa License.

[1] [1] R. Pfeifer and C. Scheier, “Understanding Intelligence,” The MIT Press, 1999.

[2] [2] H. Asama et al., “System Principle on Emergence of Mobiligence and Its Engineering Realization,” in Proc. of the 2003 IEEE/RSJ IROS, 2003, Las Vegas, Nevada, pp. 1715-1720.

[3] [3] R. Pfeifer and F. Iida, “Morphological Computation: Connecting Body, Brain and Environment,” Japanese Scientific Monthly, 58-2, pp. 48-54, 2005.

[4] [4] S. A.Wainwright, “Axis and Circumference: The Cylindrical Shape of Plants and Animals,” Harvard Univ. Press, 1988.

[5] [5] R. Kobayashi, A. Tero, and T. Nagasaki, “Mathematical Model for Rhythmic Protoplasmic Movement in the True Slime Mold,” Mathematical Biology, Vol.53, pp. 273-286, 2006.

[6] [6] J. Oda, A. Wang, and N. Matsumoto, “Trial Formation of Variable-Stiffness Spring and Its Application to Displacement Control Problems,” Transactions of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, C, Vol.59, pp. 2526-2531, 1993 (in Japanese).

[7] [7] A. Takamatsu, R. Tanaka, H. Yamada, T. Nakagaki, T. Fujii, and I. Endo, “Spatio-temporal symmetry in rings of coupled biological oscillators of Physarum plasmodium,” Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol.87, 078102, 2001.

[8] [8] A. Ishiguro and T. Kawakatsu, “How Should Control and Body Systems be Coupled? —A Robotic Case Study—,” in F. Iida, R. Pfeifer, L. Steels, and Y. Kuniyoshi (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, pp. 107-118, 2004.

[9] [9] Y. Kuramoto, “Chemical Oscillations, Waves, and Turbulence (2nd ed.),” Dover, Mineola, NY, 2003.