M.E. Nelson Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801.
Sensory feedback plays an important role in adaptive control of insect leg movements.
We also develop and test ideas about sensory feedback in physical robotic legs which incorporate many of the functionally important characteristics of insect legs. Each leg segment is equipped with position and stress sensors that provide information similar to insect chordotonal organs and campaniform sensilla. Each joint is controlled by a DC motor actuator that we have modified to emulate the dynamics of antagonistic muscle pairs. Real-time neural controllers are implemented using digital signal processor and microcontroller technology. We describe neural controllers that implement a substrate finding reflex in which the leg searches for and establishes a foothold on a spatially-restricted support.