Design World

  • Home
  • Technologies
    • 3D CAD
    • Electronics • electrical
    • Fastening & Joining
    • Factory automation
    • Linear Motion
    • Motion Control
    • Test & Measurement
    • Sensors
    • Fluid power
  • Learn
    • Ebooks / Tech Tips
    • Engineering Week
    • Future of Design Engineering
    • MC² Motion Control Classrooms
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • LEAP AWARDS
  • Leadership
    • 2022 Voting
    • 2021 Winners
  • Design Guide Library
  • Resources
    • Subscribe!
    • 3D Cad Models
      • PARTsolutions
      • TraceParts
    • Digital Issues
      • Design World
      • EE World
    • Women in Engineering
  • Supplier Listings

A fossil as a friend

By maxon | July 26, 2019

Share

Making a legged robot walk is not as simple as it looks. Coordinating the motion of all its joints to achieve smooth motions, close to those of real animals, requires advanced engineering and careful observation of moving animals. But what if we don’t exactly know how the animal looks or moves, as it has been extinct for 300 million years?

This is the story of Orobates pabsti, an early tetrapod that lived millions of years before the dinosaurs existed. Its fossilized bones were recovered in what today is Germany in 2004. The excellent state of preservation of its fossilized bones, nearly complete and articulated, was complemented with fossilized footprints, also found in the region. This helped engineers like me in the Biorobotics laboratory of EPFL (working with Tomislav Horvat and Auke Ijspeert) and a great team of biologists (led by John Nyakatura at the Humboldt University of Berlin) to reconstruct its locomotion using a robot.

But why is the locomotion of Orobates important? Orobates is an ideal candidate for understanding how land vertebrates (including humans like us) evolved. These animals represent the transition from an amphibious lifestyle to land-living vertebrates capable of laying eggs on land. This places them in the evolutionary tree between the amphibians and more evolved animals including reptiles, birds, and mammals. Whether or not Orobates could walk on land seems crucial to be studied. For example, to shed light on debates related to when the dry land was finally colonized by animals. Locomotion experiments with living animals are difficult but with an extinct animal is in fact, impossible. We needed to find a way to reconstruct the locomotion of Orobates objectively. We thought that computer simulation was a good tool to do this but legged locomotion is difficult to simulate.

Read more in the latest issue of „driven“.


Filed Under: maxon Driven

 

Related Articles Read More >

Predicting future changes in water quality
Ceramic at its best
Opening of maxon France
driven pays a visit to the robot on four legs

DESIGN GUIDE LIBRARY

“motion

Enews Sign Up

Motion Control Classroom

Design World Digital Edition

cover

Browse the most current issue of Design World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Clip, share and download with the leading design engineering magazine today.

EDABoard the Forum for Electronics

Top global problem solving EE forum covering Microcontrollers, DSP, Networking, Analog and Digital Design, RF, Power Electronics, PCB Routing and much more

EDABoard: Forum for electronics

Sponsored Content

  • Industrial disc pack couplings
  • Pushing performance: Adding functionality to terminal blocks
  • Get to Know Würth Industrial Division
  • Renishaw next-generation FORTiS™ enclosed linear encoders offer enhanced metrology and reliability for machine tools
  • WAGO’s smartDESIGNER Online Provides Seamless Progression for Projects
  • Epoxy Certified for UL 1203 Standard

Design World Podcasts

July 26, 2022
Tech Tuesdays: Sorbothane marks 40 years of shock and vibration innovation
See More >
Engineering Exchange

The Engineering Exchange is a global educational networking community for engineers.

Connect, share, and learn today »

Design World
  • Advertising
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Manage your Design World Subscription
  • Subscribe
  • Design World Digital Network
  • Engineering White Papers
  • LEAP AWARDS

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search Design World

  • Home
  • Technologies
    • 3D CAD
    • Electronics • electrical
    • Fastening & Joining
    • Factory automation
    • Linear Motion
    • Motion Control
    • Test & Measurement
    • Sensors
    • Fluid power
  • Learn
    • Ebooks / Tech Tips
    • Engineering Week
    • Future of Design Engineering
    • MC² Motion Control Classrooms
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • LEAP AWARDS
  • Leadership
    • 2022 Voting
    • 2021 Winners
  • Design Guide Library
  • Resources
    • Subscribe!
    • 3D Cad Models
      • PARTsolutions
      • TraceParts
    • Digital Issues
      • Design World
      • EE World
    • Women in Engineering
  • Supplier Listings