Animal locomotion employs different periodic patterns known as animal gaits. In 1993, Collins and Stewart recognized that gaits possessed certain symmetries and characterized the gaits of quadrupeds and bipeds using permutation symmetry groups, which impose constraints on the locomotion center called the central pattern generator (CPG) in the animal brain. They modeled the CPG by coupling four nonlinear oscillators and found that it was possible to reproduce all symmetries of the gaits by changing the coupling strength. Here we propose to extend this idea using coupled chaotic oscillators synchronized using the Pyragas method in order to characterize the CPG symmetries. We also evaluate the time series behavior when the foot is in contact with the ground: this has potential robotic applications.

Pattern formations in chaotic spatio-temporal systems modelled by coupled chaotic oscillators are investigated. We focus on various symmetry breakings and different kinds of chaos synchronization-desynchronization transitions, which lead to certain types of spontaneous spatial orderings and the emergence of some typical ordered patterns, such as rotating wave patterns with splay phase ordering (orientational symmetry breaking) and partially synchronous standing wave patterns with in-phase ordering (translational symmetry breaking). General pictures of the global behaviors of pattern formations and transitions in coupled chaotic oscillators are provided.

The possibility of using a dynamic environment to achieve and optimize phase synchronization in a network of self-excited cells with free-end boundary conditions is addressed in this paper. The dynamic environment is an oscillatory bath coupled linearly to a network of four cells. The boundaries of the stable solutions of the dynamical states as well as the ranges of coupling parameters leading to stability and instability of synchronization are determined. Numerical simulations are used to check the accuracy and to complement the result obtained from analytical treatment. The robustness of synchronization strategy is tested using a local and global injection of Gaussian white noise in the network. The control gain parameter of the bath coupling can modulate the occurrence of synchronization in the network without prior requirement of direct coupling among all the cells. The process of synchronization obtained through local injection is independent of the node at which noise is injected into the system. As compared to local injection, the global injection scheme increases the range of noise amplitude for which synchronization occurs in the network.