Bio-inspired Motion Control and Manipulation

Scope

Robots are gradually expanding from the traditional industrial field to a wider range of application scenarios, where it is becoming increasingly important to enable robots to perform agile locomotion and dexterous manipulation autonomously in complex unstructured and dynamically-changing environments. However, autonomous locomotion and manipulation of current robots still faces some key issues such as limitations of electromechanical systems, low stability of motion control, and low efficiency of motor skill learning. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to feed new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and motion control, such as gecko-inspired grasping and climbing vertical surfaces, insect-inspired locomotion transition from jumping to flying to climbing, and primate-inspired dexterous manipulation with visual-tactile fusion. Bio-inspired technologies recently have emerged as a key theme in robotics research. The related research is leading to the study of innovative structures, multi-modal sensorimotor coordination, bio-inspired control, and artificial intelligence approaches to achieve stability, agility, and flexibility for robotic motion and manipulation. But it is still challenging to develop a deep understanding of the relevant natural system and translate this understanding into engineering design rules for imitating biological structures or behaviors.

This special issue will focus on recent progress and new bio-inspired robotic technologies that have the potential for profound impact on the real world. It will cover subjects including bio-inspired mechanical design, sensorimotor coordination, bioinspired motion control, manipulation, and related applications. Topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Mechanical design of bio-inspired robots
• Multimodal sensorimotor coordination
• Bio-inspired motion control
• Bio-inspired robotic learning
• Bio-inspired manipulation
• Computational neuroscience of motor control
• Applications of bio-inspired robotics

Guest Editors

Dr. Zhihong Jiang, Professor, Beijing Institute of Technology

Dr. Zhihong Jiang received his Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University in 2005. He is currently a professor with the School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China. His research interests include space intelligent robotics, industry robot systems, artificial intelligence and robot vision, and human-machine interaction. Currently, his research works have been applied in the robotic system of the China Space Station and he is a member of the expert team for the technical assessment of the robotics of the China Space Station.

Dr. Qiang Li, Professor, Bielefeld University

Dr. Qiang Li received his PhD in Pattern Recognition and Intelligence Systems from Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2010. He was awarded the stipend from the Honda Research Institute Europe and started his postdoctoral researching at CoR-Lab of Bielefeld University from 2009 to 2012. Currently, he is a Principal Investigator of ”DEXMAN” sponsored by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and working in the neuroinformatics group at Bielefeld University. His research interests include: tactile servoing and recognition, sensory-based robotic dexterous manipulation and robotic calibration and dynamic control. He serves as Associate Editor in International Journal of Humanoid Robotics (Robotics) and Complex & Intelligent Systems (AI) and Associated Editor for top level robotics conferences—ICRA, IROS, Humanoids.

Dr. Xiao Huang, Assistant Professor, Beijing Institute of Technology

Dr. Xiao Huang received the Ph.D. degree in control theory and control engineering with the State Key Laboratory of Management and Control for Complex Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2020. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the School of Mechatronical Engineering, Advanced Innovation Center for Intelligent Robots and Systems, Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robots and Systems of Chinese Ministry of Education, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China. His current research interests include bio-inspired computing, machine learning, robot perception and decision-making.

Submission Instructions

Please select "Bio-inspired Motion Control and Manipulation" as the section/category during the submission process. Please also indicate in your cover letter that your submission is intended for inclusion in the special issue.

Submission Deadline: June 30, 2023

Table of Contents