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Oscillator driven central pattern generator (CPG) system for procedural animation of quadruped locomotion

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Abstract

In this paper a procedural animation framework is developed and discussed, which consists of a oscillator based Central Pattern Generator (CPG) system. This CPG based animation model is able to produce coupled leg oscillation derived through user-controlled parameters, producing in-phase and out-of-phase leg swing motion curves. Each leg has a separate CPG unit that is able to generate and control the swing and stance phases of each gait cycle with couple oscillation, having a time shift in correspondence to each leg, in a permuted symmetry. The dynamic motion is calculated independently for each body part with user interaction and control over the speed, frequency and oscillation of body parts individually, during runtime, for high divergence control of the simulation. The user can manipulate the simulation parameters for leg impact phases and duration at runtime and the system will automatically adjust the motion gaits and transitions between each gait at runtime. This procedural model for animating quadrupeds can generate various locomotion gaits with varying speed and footfall patterns dynamically. The various gaits produced by the CPG system are, walk, trot, gallop, canter, pace, pronk and rack. Various gait and footfall timing test are performed to test and validate the motion, along with a study of user’s perception test to determine a Visual Mean Opinion Score (VMOS) of the believability and accuracy of the generated animation with statistical significance.

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  1. Institute of Information and Communication Technology, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan

    Zeeshan Bhatti

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Correspondence to Zeeshan Bhatti.

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Bhatti, Z. Oscillator driven central pattern generator (CPG) system for procedural animation of quadruped locomotion. Multimed Tools Appl 78, 30485–30502 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-019-7641-1

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