A ROBOTIC salamander crawls towards the water, steps in and starts swimming. It is a taster of what’s to come: a fresh breed of robots that will be able to switch seamlessly between swimming and walking, all under the control of an artificial nervous system.
In animals, movement is coordinated by a cluster of neurons in the spinal cord called the central pattern generator (CPG). This produces signals that drive muscles to contract rhythmically in a way that produces running or walking, depending on the pattern of pulses. A simple signal from the brain instructs the CPG to switch between…
