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Animal and Robotic Locomotion on Wet Granular Media

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Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems (Living Machines 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10384))

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Abstract

Most of the terrestrial environments are covered with some type of flowing ground; however, inadequate understanding of moving bodies interacting with complex granular substrates has hindered the development of terrestrial/all-terrain robots. Although there has been recent performance of experimental and computational studies of dry granular media, wet granular media remain largely unexplored. In particular, this encompasses animal locomotion analysis, robotic system performance, and the physics of granular media at different saturation levels. Given that the presence of liquid in granular media alters its properties significantly, it is advantageous to evaluate the locomotion of animals inhabiting semi-aquatic and tropical environments to learn more about effective locomotion strategies on such terrains. Lizards are versatile and highly agile animals. Therefore, this study evaluated the brown basilisk, which is a lizard species from such habitats that are known for their performance on wet granular media. An extensive locomotion study was performed on this species. The animal experiments showed that on higher saturation levels, velocity of the animal was increased due to an increase in the stride length. A basilisk-inspired robot was then developed to further study the locomotion on wet granular media and it was observed that the robot can also achieve higher velocities at increased saturation levels. This work can pave the way for developing robotic systems which can explore complex environments for scientific discovery, planetary exploration, or search-and-rescue missions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank ASU Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) for animal husbandry (IACUC Protocol #: 16-1504R), Professor Dale DeNardo for greatly valuable suggestions on the choice of animal and animal experiments, Professor Heather Emady and Spandana Vajrala for fruitful discussions on studying wet granular media, Carolyn Harvey for her contributions to the setup development, Daniel Lee, Isaac Charcos, and John Millard for helping with animal data collection/analysis, and Arizona State University for funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA

    Hosain Bagheri, Vishwarath Taduru, Sachin Panchal, Shawn White & Hamidreza Marvi

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  1. Hosain Bagheri
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  2. Vishwarath Taduru
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  3. Sachin Panchal
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  4. Shawn White
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  5. Hamidreza Marvi
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Correspondence to Hamidreza Marvi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Lincoln, Lincoln, United Kingdom

    Michael Mangan

  2. Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Mark Cutkosky

  3. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Anna Mura

  4. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Paul F.M.J. Verschure

  5. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Tony Prescott

  6. Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Nathan Lepora

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Bagheri, H., Taduru, V., Panchal, S., White, S., Marvi, H. (2017). Animal and Robotic Locomotion on Wet Granular Media. In: Mangan, M., Cutkosky, M., Mura, A., Verschure, P., Prescott, T., Lepora, N. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10384. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63537-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63537-8_2

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