delcomyn@illinois.edu
357 Morrill Hall
Office: 217-333-8793
Mail: 320 Morrill Hall, 505 S. Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Lab Page
Director Emeritus - School of Integrative Biology
Physiological basis of insect behavior
Delcomyn is concerned with the neural mechanisms that enable an animal to generate, coordinate, and control the individual movements that together comprise behavior. He has chosen the locomotion of insects as a model behavior in part because neural programs of motor activity are strongly influenced by sensory input in insects. He uses physiological techniques, computer simulation, and robotic engineering to model the insect locomotor system and to test hypotheses about how motor programs are generated and how they are influenced by sensory feedback.
Representative Publications
Delcomyn, F. 1980. Neural basis of rhythmic behavior in animals. Science 210, 492-498.
Delcomyn, F. 1985. Walking and running. In Comprehensive Insect Physiology, Biochemistry and Pharmacology, Ed. by G.A. Kerkut and L.I. Gilbert, Vol. 5, Chapter 11, pp. 439-466. London: Pergamon Press.
Delcomyn, F. 1991. Perturbation of the motor system in freely walking cockroaches. I. & II. J. Exp. Biol. 156, 483-517.
Delcomyn, F. 1999. Walking robots and the central and peripheral control of locomotion in insects. Auton. Rob. 7, 259-270.
Reichler, J.A. and F. Delcomyn. 2000. A dynamics simulator and controller testbed for biologically inspired walking robots. Int. J. Robotics Res. 19, 42-58.
Delcomyn, F. and Nelson, M.E. 2000. Architectures for a biomimetic hexapod robot. Robot. Auton. Sys. 30, 5-15.
Li, J., Fan, Z., Chen, J., Zou, J., Liu, C. and Delcomyn, F. 2002. High yield microfabrication process for biomimetic artificial haircell sensors, Smart Electronics, MEMS, and Nanotechnology Conference (Conference 4700), SPIE's 9th Annual International Symposium on Smart Structures and Materials, 17-21 March 2002, San Diego, CA.
Delcomyn, F. 2004. Insect Walking and Robotics. Annual Rev. Entomol. 49, 51-70.
Delcomyn, F. 2004. Insect walking. Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 3d edition (CD-ROM), edited by G. Adelman and B. Smith. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Delcomyn, F. 2004. Insect models for robotics. Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 3d edition (CD-ROM), edited by G. Adelman and B. Smith. Amsterdam: Elsevier.