Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine 25-9 - 36

Test Benches for Comparing the
Performance of an Ant's Leg with
a Hexapod Robot's Leg
Ilya Brodoline, Pierre Moretto, Stéphane Viollet,
Vincent Fourcassié, and Julien R. Serres
A
nimal-inspired mobile robots tend to show remarkable
performance in outdoor locomotion and
navigation tasks, but a big gap remains between
robots and animals in terms of autonomy and endurance
[1]. Biomimicry is helping to solve numerous design issues
through a better understanding of how animals move. Insectinspired
robots, in particular, can be built to interact with
uneven terrains which are difficult to traverse for other robots
[1], and bio-inspired robots designed to overcome the
technological limitations of artificial systems are also valuable
models for biologists in better understanding the behavior of
animals [1], [2]. Therefore, exploring the limitations caused by
mimicking insects of a few millimeters with robots measuring
several centimeters becomes relevant. In this study, we first
present two test benches used to investigate leg movement:
one used to characterize that of an ant and the other that of a
robotic leg. By comparing this multiscale data, we discuss the
significance and relevance of these measurements in evaluating
the robotic performance.
Walking Performance of a MillimeterScale
Ant
Motion Capture System
During the last decade, huge progress has been made in the
development of efficient motion capture systems for the study
of human movements, and several such systems are already
commercially available. These systems are perfectly suitable
for the study of humans and other big vertebrates that can be
equipped with reflecting markers, and whose position can
then be automatically tracked at a high frame rate. However,
the use of such markers is virtually impossible when working
with small organisms such as insects whose body length rarely
exceeds one centimeter. This makes the tracking of particular
points on their body a challenging task, and one has to resort
to sophisticated image analysis software to pinpoint and track
specific anatomical points in the sequences of images acquired
from the videos. The execution of movements in insects can be
extremely rapid, so the study of movement in these organisms
36
often requires the use of special equipment such as ultrahighspeed
cameras. Because of these constraints, all studies of
insect movement published so far have relied on custom-made
equipment rather than on commercial systems. Limitations to
the optical resolution of video equipment also explain why
most studies of insect movement have, for a long time, only
been achieved on larger insects such as cockroaches or stickinsects.
It is only recently that studies of limb movements on
small insects such as the model organism Drosophila have begun
to appear in the literature [2].
Among all insects, ants offer relevant biological models
for the building of bio-inspired legs for hexapod robots.
With more than 12,000 species identified so far, ants are one
of the most diverse groups of insects and are characterized
by an amazing variety of morphologies, both within and between
species [3]. Moreover, they can be found in all types of
biotopes. As a result, their locomotor equipment, locomotor
behavior and musculoskeletal system have evolved outstanding
adaptations, allowing them to run at extreme speed, to
crawl through narrow tunnels, to climb vertical surfaces and
even to swim, jump or glide in the air. Finally, ants are one
of the rare organisms in the animal kingdom that can walk
distances several thousand times their body length while carrying
loads exceeding their own by up to 15 times.
To study the kinematics of locomotion and leg movement
in ants we used a custom-made setup (Fig. 1). This setup
was designed by a private company (R&D Vision, France.
http://www.rd-vision.com) and is described in [4]. The ant,
as it moves on a horizontal walkway, is filmed by five synchronized
cameras (JAI GO-5000M-PMCL: frequency: 250 Hz;
resolution: 30 μm/pixel) equipped with 16 mm macro lenses
(Fujinon CF16H1-1). Four cameras are positioned laterally to,
and one vertically above the walkway. Four infrared strobe
spots (λ = 850 nm), synchronized with the cameras, illuminate
the walkway from above and allow a better contrast between
the ant and the background. Individuals of the ant species we
studied (Messor barbarus) vary in body length (distance between
the tip of the abdomen and the bases of the mandibles)
from 0.9 to 6 mm. Our setup has been calibrated to record their
IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine
1094-6969/22/$25.00©2022IEEE
December 2022
http://www.rd-vision.com

Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine 25-9

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