Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization have developed a walking robot that can flexibly and autonomously switch between different gaits, modeled on human-animal neural circuits called “central pattern generators” (CPG): a simple network with just a few sensors can create very diverse movement patterns.

The secret of its functioning lies in “chaos control”: If uncontrolled, the CPG produces a chaotic activity pattern, BUT This activity can be very easily controlled by the sensor inputs into periodic patterns that determine the gait.

The connection between sensory properties and CPG can either be preprogrammed or learned by the robot from experience.