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Where are we in understanding salamander locomotion: biological and robotic perspectives on kinematics

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Abstract

Salamanders have captured the interest of biologists and roboticists for decades because of their ability to locomote in different environments and their resemblance to early representatives of tetrapods. In this article, we review biological and robotic studies on the kinematics (i.e., angular profiles of joints) of salamander locomotion aiming at three main goals: (i) to give a clear view of the kinematics, currently available, for each body part of the salamander while moving in different environments (i.e., terrestrial stepping, aquatic stepping, and swimming), (ii) to examine what is the status of our current knowledge and what remains unclear, and (iii) to discuss how much robotics and modeling have already contributed and will potentially contribute in the future to such studies.

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Notes

  1. Roll, pitch and yaw are the angles which describe the rotation around each one of the three axes of a joint and should not be confused with retraction and adduction. Retraction or adduction can be achieved with different combinations of roll, pitch and yaw. The sequence is also important. For example, when roll is zero, pitch can lead to adduction/abduction only. In any other case, it will cause some retraction/protraction.

  2. The CDF originates from the Crista ventralis of the femur (trochanter) close and cranioventrally to the femoral head and inserts on the anteroventral part of the tail (spanning 2–3 vertebrae).

  3. The pitch angle when the roll is zero moves the femur dorsoventrally. If the roll changes to \(90^\circ \) the pitch will be moving the femur cranioventrally.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the EU within the FP7 project Lampetra. Robert Salzer and Rommy Petersohn helped with the X-ray recordings and Alexander Haas and Tamer Fawzy together with Felix Beckmann from the HASYLAB at the DESY in Hamburg (Germany) prepared the scans for the 3D reconstruction of the skeleton. This study was partly supported by the Center of Interdisciplinary Prevention of Diseases related to Professional Activities funded by the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and the Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrungsmittel und Gastgewerbe Erfurt (Germany). All experiments were carried out in accordance with the animal welfare guidelines of the state of Thuringia, Germany (Reg.-Nr. 02-042/09). Pleurodeles waltl is currently not endangered (IUCN status 2011: near threatened).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Konstantinos Karakasiliotis & Auke Jan Ijspeert

  2. Institute of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany

    Nadja Schilling

  3. University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation Small Animal Clinic, Hannover, Germany

    Nadja Schilling

  4. Neurocentre Magendie INSERM U862, Bordeaux University, Bordeaux-cedex, France

    Jean-Marie Cabelguen

Authors
  1. Konstantinos Karakasiliotis
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  2. Nadja Schilling
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  3. Jean-Marie Cabelguen
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  4. Auke Jan Ijspeert
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Konstantinos Karakasiliotis.

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This article forms part of a special issue of Biological Cybernetics entitled “Lamprey, Salamander Robots and Central Nervous System”.

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Karakasiliotis, K., Schilling, N., Cabelguen, JM. et al. Where are we in understanding salamander locomotion: biological and robotic perspectives on kinematics. Biol Cybern 107, 529–544 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-012-0540-4

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