Cockroaches adjust body and appendages to traverse cluttered large obstacles
Yaqing Wang, Ratan Othayoth, and Chen Li

TL;DR
This study investigates how cockroaches actively adjust their body and appendages, such as head flexion and leg sprawl, to facilitate transitions between locomotor modes when navigating cluttered terrain with large obstacles.
Contribution
It reveals specific active body adjustments in cockroaches during locomotor transitions and models how these adjustments reduce energy barriers in complex terrain.
Findings
Leg sprawl reduction dramatically lowers transition energy barrier
Head flexion does not significantly affect the transition barrier
Cockroaches actively modify their posture to aid obstacle navigation
Abstract
To traverse complex natural terrain, animals often transition between locomotor modes. It is well known that locomotor transitions can be induced by switching in neural control circuits or be driven by a need to minimize metabolic energetic cost. Recent work discovered that locomotor transitions in complex 3-D terrain cluttered with large obstacles can also emerge from physical interaction with the environment controlled by the nervous system. To traverse cluttered, stiff grass-like beams, the discoid cockroach often transitions from using a strenuous pitch mode to push across to using a less strenuous roll mode to maneuver through the gaps, during which a potential energy barrier must be overcome. Although previous robotic physical modeling demonstrated that kinetic energy fluctuation from body oscillation generated by leg propulsion can help overcome the barrier and facilitate this…
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