Motion Generation of a Starfish-Shaped Gel Robot

3 Motion Generation of a Starfish-Shaped Gel Robot Decomposition of the problem 

If we look back to the experiment of turning over motion in chapter 5, it corresponds to the somersault type. The somersault motion was focused for turning over motion in this study. The key to achieve turning over motion is to coordinate each part of the body. If we get back to the objective of the motion, we do not have to control every part of the body in each step. The assumption 

In this manner, we can regard turn over motion control problem as inverse dynamics problem. The problem is then decomposed into three parts. The first problem is how to determine the direction of locomotion. The second one is to generate desired trajectory of the center of the robot along locomotion direction. The third one is to make the robot to follow the desired trajectory. The following subsections solve these problems. 

Now that the nature of turn over motion is abstracted and the potential directions of motion is figured out by symmetric analysis, let s move on to the desired trajectory generation. 

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