Patent Document ID: 8494676
Application ID: 12820571
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of realizing biomimetic behavior in a robot, comprising: identifying plural physical components of a subject animal, each capable of being physically displaced with respect to each other; identifying a physical maneuver performed by at least one of the physical components of the subject animal; for each of the at least one physical components performing the identified physical maneuver, identifying changes in physical orientation over time; forming a behavioral sequence file comprised of the changes in physical orientation for each of the at least one physical components required to perform the identified physical maneuver over the time required to perform the identified physical maneuver; providing a robot comprising a body with an interior body cavity and an exterior body surface having a substantially duplicate component for each of the identified plural physical components of the subject animal, each of the substantially duplicate components being independently actuatable through selective activation of respective paired, antagonistic actuators; providing a distributed neural circuit-based controller in association with the robot, the controller including a microcontroller and a memory and further comprising a finite state machine for each of the substantially duplicate components, each finite state machine comprising a neural oscillator for dividing each of plural step cycles into elemental phases during which one or more of the respective actuators are activated, a coordinating neuron for checking the step cycle phase of the state machine of one or more adjacent substantially duplicate components to temporally coordinate the activation of each, a pattern generator for coordinating the pattern of movement of the respective substantially duplicate component in response to a command received from the microcontroller, the neural oscillator, and the coordinating neuron, and a recruiter associated with each of the respective actuators for selective activation thereof in response to output from the respective pattern generator; forming a behavioral library in the controller memory, the behavioral library comprising, for a respective physical maneuver, a command sequence, each command of the command sequence for selectively activating one or more of the actuators associated with a respective state machine to achieve a change in physical orientation in a respective substantially duplicate component, the command sequence causing changes in physical orientation for each of the at least one substantially duplicate components required to perform the identified physical maneuver over the time required to perform the identified physical maneuver in accordance the behavioral sequence file; and commanding the robot to perform the identified physical maneuver through the microcontroller issuing the respective command sequence from the behavioral library to achieve the changes in physical orientation for each of the at least one substantially duplicate components required to, perform the identified physical maneuver over the time required to perform the identified physical maneuver.