Robots take giant leap forward

The world’s most advanced set of robot legs has been developed by a team of scientists in the US, raising hope for advancements in understanding how the brain controls muscles and could help with the treatment of spinal injuries.

The team of experts from the University of Arizona discovered that they could mimic the central pattern generator (CPG), a part of the spine that partially controls the hips, knees and ankles. They were then able to design artificial legs with the information.

Announcing the findings in the Journal of Neural Engineering, the experts said: “This robot represents a complete physical, or ‘neurorobotic’ model of the system, demonstrating the usefulness of this type of robotics research for investigating the neuropsychological processes underlying walking in humans and animals.”

One of the scientists involved, Dr Theresa Klein, said: “Interestingly, we were able to produce a walking gait, without balance, which mimicked human walking with only a simple half-centre controlling the hips and a set of reflex responses controlling the lower limb.”

Another of the experts, Anthony Lewis, told AFP how the system worked: “We combined the three elements, the biomechanics and a complex central pattern generator with sensory feedback. When we put all three together, the resultant movement was very much like a human being’s and we know that because we saw a very good agreement with what we saw in human studies, particularly in the movement of the robot at the hip and knee.”

The potential for this development is huge. Greater understanding of how the brain and spinal cord translates information into moving the legs will help researchers develop treatments for spinal cord injuries.