Robot controllers are often optimised for a single robot in a single environment. This approach proves brittle, as such a controller will often fail to produce sensible behavior for a new morphology or environment. In comparison, animal gaits are robust and versatile. By observing animals, and attempting to extract general principles of locomotion from their movement, we aim to design a single decentralised controller applicable to diverse morphologies and environments. The controller implements the three components 1) undulation, 2) peristalsis, and 3) leg motion, which we believe are the essential elements in most animal gaits. The controller is tested on a variety of simulated centipede-like robots. The centipede is chosen as inspiration because it moves using both body contractions and legged locomotion. For a controller to work in qualitatively different settings, it must also be able to exhibit qualitatively different behaviors. We find that six different modes of locomotion emerge from our controller in response to environmental and morphological changes. We also find that different parts of the centipede model can exhibit different modes of locomotion, simultaneously, based on local morphological features. This controller can potentially aid in the design or evolution of robots, by quickly testing the potential of a morphology, or be used to get insights about underlying locomotion principles in the centipede.

翻译：机器人控制器通常针对单一机器人在单一环境中进行优化。这种方法被证明是脆弱的，因为这样的控制器在面对新的形态或环境时，常常无法产生合理的行为。相比之下，动物的步态则具有鲁棒性和多功能性。通过观察动物，并试图从其运动中提取运动的一般性原则，我们的目标是设计一种适用于多种形态和环境的单一分布式控制器。该控制器实现了三个组成部分：1）波动，2）蠕动，以及3）腿部运动，我们相信这些是大多数动物步态的基本要素。该控制器在多种模拟的类蜈蚣机器人上进行了测试。选择蜈蚣作为灵感来源，是因为它同时利用身体收缩和足式运动进行移动。为了使控制器能够在性质不同的环境中工作，它还必须能够展现出性质不同的行为。我们发现，我们的控制器能够响应环境和形态的变化，涌现出六种不同的运动模式。我们还发现，基于局部的形态特征，蜈蚣模型的不同部分可以同时展现出不同的运动模式。该控制器有望通过快速测试形态的潜力来辅助机器人的设计或进化，或用于深入理解蜈蚣运动的基本原理。