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Tesi etd-06272020-125156


Tipo di tesi
Tesi di laurea magistrale
Autore
IORI, FRANCESCO
URN
etd-06272020-125156
Titolo
From swimming to land locomotion: gait analysis and simulation framework development to understand Polypterus Sen. terrestrial locomotion
Dipartimento
INGEGNERIA DELL'INFORMAZIONE
Corso di studi
INGEGNERIA ROBOTICA E DELL'AUTOMAZIONE
Relatori
relatore Prof. Avizzano, Carlo Alberto
Parole chiave
  • gait
  • locomotion
  • Polypterus
  • Polypterus Senegalus
  • simulation
  • tethrapod
Data inizio appello
16/07/2020
Consultabilità
Non consultabile
Data di rilascio
16/07/2090
Riassunto
The current understanding of how different gaits can emerge in animals and of how those gaits evolved in relation to the body morphology is very limited. This is especially true regarding the locomotion of amphibians and how locomotion features co-evolved in the transition from water to land.
Since tetrapods, especially the Salamander, have been studied more deeply, this work focus on the analysis of the terrestrial gait of Polypterus Sen., a fish that presents terrestrial locomotion capabilities.
Given the observed similarities between the gaits of the two animals and the absence of a clear evolutionary path between them, a preliminary kinematics-based analysis is performed to understand how Polypterus can exploit its elongated body morphology for locomotion.
Since further analysis depends on the understanding of the dynamics underlying this movement, a simulation framework based on the open-source physics engine PyBullet is then developed. This framework allows control, optimization, and visualization operations to be performed conveniently and easily with a generic elongated-body morphology and varying physical parameters.
The tool is meant to greatly improve the testing of different hypotheses regarding the locomotion of Polypterus (and elongated-body animals), offloading the set-up, control, and optimization needed to test them.
Preliminary results are also obtained which confirm the correctness of the results deriving from the kinematic analysis.
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