Tootfinder

Spiking control systems for soft robotics: a rhythmic case study in a soft robotic crawler
Juncal Arbelaiz, Alessio Franci, Naomi Ehrich Leonard, Rodolphe Sepulchre, Bassam Bamieh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02968

Spiking control systems for soft robotics: a rhythmic case study in a soft robotic crawler
Inspired by spiking neural feedback, we propose a spiking controller for efficient locomotion in a soft robotic crawler. Its bistability, akin to neural fast positive feedback, combined with a sensorimotor slow negative feedback loop, generates rhythmic spiking. The closed-loop system is robust through the quantized actuation, and negative feedback ensures efficient locomotion with minimal external tuning. We prove that peristaltic waves arise from a supercritical Hopf bifurcation controlled by…

Graphs With Polarities
John C. Baez, Adittya Chaudhuri
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23375 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.23375

Graphs With Polarities
In fields ranging from business to systems biology, directed graphs with edges labeled by signs are used to model systems in a simple way: the nodes represent entities of some sort, and an edge indicates that one entity directly affects another either positively or negatively. Multiplying the signs along a directed path of edges lets us determine indirect positive or negative effects, and if the path is a loop we call this a positive or negative feedback loop. Here we generalize this to graphs …