Robotic Legs Walk Like Humans More Accurately Than Ever Before

Robotic legs are now becoming more and more like human legs. US Researchers are working on making a robot's legs in a biologically accurate manner. Human walking gait is quite typical and is so because of the neural architecture, musculoskeletal architecture and sensory feedback pathways. Simplifying this structure and building it in a robot is what these researchers are working on. The best place to learn was to see how babies learn to walk or how spinal-cord-injury patients recover their ability to walk.

#-Link-Snipped-#

Human walking system is characterized by a central pattern generator or CPG, a neural network in the lumbar region of the spinal cord. This CPG  produces & controls rhythmic muscle signals by collecting information from different parts of the body that are responding to the environment. This is what allows you to walk without needing to think about it. Interesting, eh? The University of Arizona research team have figured out that the babies start with a simple walk and move to a more complex walking pattern over the period of time. See a video published by the Institute of Physics below -

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MnD7LqisBhM" frameborder="0" width="640" height="360"></iframe>

Via: #-Link-Snipped-#