Bipedal walking of an octopus-inspired robot

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper a model is presented which describes an octopus-inspired robot capable of two kinds of locomotion: crawling and bipedal walking. Focus will be placed on the latter type of locomotion to demon-strate, through model simulations and experimental trials, that the robot’s speed increases by about 3 times compared to crawling. This finding is coherent with the performances of the biological counterpart when adopt-ing this gait. Specific features of underwater legged locomotion are then derived from the model, which prompt the possibility of controlling lo-comotion by using simple control and by exploiting slight morphological adaptations