The stick insect as a walking robot

The stick insect is an animal which walks and climbs very efficiently over arbitrarily irregular surfaces. The anatomical arrangement of the legs is similar to that of many walking machines. Thus, this insect is an interesting biological model for studying mechanisms to control the movement of walking legs. Experimental measurements and model simulations for the stick insect are summarized. The focus is on those mechanisms which coordinate the movement of different legs in order to produce a proper gait. The results show that leg coordination is not produced by a single, central pacemaker. Instead each leg has a local control center and the normal gait emerges out of interactions between these control centers according to simple, local rules.>