The guts of the salamander robot. Salamandra robotica does not move autonomously. Rather, signals are sent wirelessly from a laptop to the "brains" of the robot, directing it to swim, crawl or walk. As happens with a live salamander, the signals are then sent down to the spinal cord, which triggers locomotion.
The researchers were able to make the robot transition from walking to swimming simply by varying the level of stimulation of the brain stem. They hypothesized that real salamanders control movement with the level and asymmetry of drive to the spinal cord.
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