Natural Oscillation Control of Prototype Mechanical Rectifiers

For a typical biologically inspired multi-segmental mechanical system, the system´s locomotion behavior is rectified from the segments´ rhythmic oscillation. A central pattern generator (CPG)-based controller was developed to achieve the locomotion with a certain sense of natural oscillation. We designed and manufactured a prototype mechanical rectifier (PMR) system which captures the essential mechanism of multi-segmental systems. Experiments were conducted on the PMR system to reveal the effectiveness of the natural oscillation entrainment controller.