Learning to bounce: First lessons from a bouncing robot

The study of how infants learn to bounce, while being supported by a harness attached to a spring, sheds light on how infants learn to exploit the dynamics of their exploratory motion. The emerging rhythmical activity – result of an entrainment among neural system, musculo-skeletal system, and surrounding environment – is a salient characteristic of a developing body control during the first year of life. In this paper, we describe and discuss the results of four preliminary experiments realized with a small-sized humanoid robot harnessed in a jolly jumper, and whose leg joints are controlled by neural oscillators. While the two first experiments see the robot oscillate freely in space, the last experiments have the robot touch the ground during oscillations so as to characterize the effects of ground interaction. An appropriate choice of the parameters of the neural oscillators lead to sustained and stable bouncing.