Modeling of the Primary Animal Gaits by Coupled Identical Raleigh-Van der Pol Oscillators

Mathematical models based on coupled oscillators successfully describe animal gaits. The dynamics of individual oscillators (internal dynamics) in the network is nonlinear and must be at least two-dimensional to have a Hopf bifurcation. One example of this type of dynamics is a network of Rayleigh - Van der Pol oscillators which is used to produce primary gaits such as walk, trot, pace and bound. When these oscillators couple together, they produce patterns of relative phases that correspond to the different animal gaits. The patterns emerge through bifurcations as parameters describing the coupling are varied. At least eight cells are required to model the quadruped gaits.