Fig. 1: Reciprocal interplay between robotics, biology, and mathematics.
From: Coordinating limbs and spine: (Pareto-)optimal locomotion in theory, in vivo, and in robots
The robotic model SQUAMATAR (bottom, green corner) provides simple kinematics for the mathematical model (top left, blue corner). In turn, the mathematical model validates the robot kinematics (e.g., stride lengths) and thus allows a prediction of experimentally determined data of real lizards (top right, brown corner). The experiments gave inspiration for both the theoretical model and the design of the robotic model. Last, SQUAMATAR allowed for testing criteria such as stability and efficiency not obtainable through biological experiments.
