Studying the jerboa to advance bipedal robots

Published on Sep 5, 2017

Researchers from the University of Michigan have created a model to quantitatively measure the unpredictability of the movement pattern of the jerboa, a bipedal desert rodent. Ram Vasudevan, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering, in partnership with Talia Moore, a research fellow in ecology and evolutionary biology, used Information Theory to measure the randomness or unpredictability of this highly evasive animal. The researchers believe this new model for unpredictable movement can be applied to bipedal robots as a way to engineer unpredictability in their gait.
"How a hopping mouse and information theory could inform robotic locomotion"

by Ram Vasudevan
September 5, 2017