An energy landscape approach to locomotor transitions in complex 3D terrain
Abstract
Effective locomotion in nature happens by transitioning across multiple modes (e.g., walk, run, climb). Using laboratory experiments on a model system, we demonstrate that an energy landscape approach helps understand how multipathway transitions across locomotor modes in complex 3D terrain statistically emerge from physical interaction. Animals’ and robots’ locomotor modes are attracted to basins of a potential energy landscape. They can use kinetic energy fluctuation from oscillatory self-propulsion to cross potential energy barriers, escaping from one basin and reaching another to make locomotor transitions. Our first-principle energy landscape approach is the beginning of a statistical physics theory of locomotor transitions in complex terrain. It will help understand and predict how animals, and how robots should, move through the real world.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 15, 2020
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1918297117
Entities
People
- Chen Li
- George Thoms
- Ratan Othayoth
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- Johns Hopkins University