Title: CPG-based control of a swallowing robot

Authors: Mingzhu Zhu; W.L. Xu; J.E. Bronlund

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand ' School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Abstract: CPGs are non-linear oscillators formed by neural circuits which can generate rhythmic movements without receiving central input or rhythmic sensory feedback. They are the essential mechanism under animal rhythmic locomotion. In this paper, a biological inspired CPG controller was adopted to control a swallowing robot based on a recurrent cyclic inhibition (RCI) circuit. In this design, the RCI consist of three neurons generate rhythmic movement. There are two kinds of working method under this control system in order to mimic human swallowing process: one is to modelling the behaviour the primary peristalsis, and the other is to imitating the secondary peristalsis.

Keywords: central pattern generator; nonlinear oscillation; peristalsis; CPG based control; swallowing robots; recurrent cyclic inhibition; RCI circuits; rhythmic movement; rhythmic locomotion; modelling; robot control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2014.063916

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2014 Vol.50 No.1/2, pp.137 - 147

Published online: 08 Apr 2015 *

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