(NC & T) The so-called RunBot (Robot Corridor), lives up to its name, since it has the world record in speed walking for dynamic machines. Now its inventors have expanded its repertoire. With a special infrared eye can detect a slope on its path and adjust its gait on the go. Just like humans, leans forward slightly and uses shorter steps. You can learn this behavior in only a few trials.

The robot’s ability to change abruptly from one gait to another, is due to the hierarchical organization of control of their movements. In this respect, it resembles the control we possess humans, and can be taken as a human model. In the lower hierarchical levels, the movement is based on reflexes driven by peripheral sensors. The control circuits ensure that joints are not taken to the limit or that the next step begins only when the foot touches the ground.

Only when progress needs to be adapted, higher centers of the organization take control, a process activated by the human brain, or, if the robot, by its infrared eye leading to a simpler neural network. Due to the hierarchical organization, of the progress can be achieved by changing only some parameters. Other factors will be automatically tuned through the regular circuits.

In its first effort to climb a slope, RunBot will fall back, as they still have not learned to react to its visual input with a change in your gait. But like children, RunBot learns from its failures, which leads to a strengthening of the contact between the eye and the control modules of their movements. Only when these connections are established, step length and posture of the body are controlled by the visually induced signal. The slope is steeper, more pronounced will be the adaptation of the gait of RunBot.