Crawling strategies and uncertainty handling

Strategies for locomotion are assorted in nature. Many crawlers use asymmetrical interactions with the substrate to transmit forces through gripping or friction. We present a simple lumped-parameter model, including the effects of inertia, muscle elasticity and interaction with the substrate in order to isolate key features of crawling strategies. Different muscle activation patterns are considered, as well as the role of Central Pattern Generators (CPG) and proprioception in locomotion. Finally, we study the impact of environmental noise and uncertainty on crawling efficacy and complexity of the control strategy.