Leg Mechanics of Arthropods

这个项目建立了两条腿以上行走的力学的一般理论。节肢动物被用作这一假说的测试模型。这项研究对行走机器、机器人和远程机械手的有效控制具有潜在的应用价值，这些机器必须在地面上行走，在建筑物上攀爬，并在有限的空间中移动，以执行建筑、维护、监视和其他相关任务。这项工作分四个阶段进行，其中包括：1)调查各种死亡节肢动物的大腿特征和潜在的腿部运动，包括所有主要可测量尺寸的行人类别的代表；2)根据公认的机械标准评估节肢动物调查中测量的这些腿，以开始确定它们已经优化了哪些功能；3)开发高速摄影和图像数字化的过程，以分析活的节肢动物的运动；以及4)扩展这种运动的计算机模型。

This project establishes a general theory of the mechanics of walking with more than two legs. Arthropods are used as test models for the hypothesis. The research has potential application to the efficient control of walking machines, robots, and remote manipulators which must walk on the ground, climb on structures, and move in confined spaces for construction, maintenance, surveillance, and other related tasks. The work proceeds in four phases which include: 1) Survey the gross leg characteristics and potential leg motions of a variety of dead arthropods including representatives of all major pedestrian classes of measurable size; 2) Evaluate these measured legs from the arthropod survey according to accepted mechanical criteria to begin to determine for what functions they have been optimized; 3) Develop the process of high speed photography and digitization of the resulting images to analyze motion of living arthropods; and 4) Expand the computer model for such movement.