%A Paschalis Veskos %A Yiannis Demiris %T Developmental acquisition of entrainment skills in robot swinging using van der Pol oscillators %X In this study we investigated the effects of different morphological configurations on a robot swinging task using van der Pol oscillators. The task was examined using two separate degrees of freedom (DoF), both in the presence and absence of neural entrainment. Neural entrainment stabilises the system, reduces time-to-steady state and relaxes the requirement for a strong coupling with the environment in order to achieve mechanical entrainment. It was found that staged release of the distal DoF does not have any benefits over using both DoF from the onset of the experimentation. On the contrary, it is less efficient, both with respect to the time needed to reach a stable oscillatory regime and the maximum amplitude it can achieve. The same neural architecture is successful in achieving neuromechanical entrainment for a robotic walking task. %K van der Pol oscillator, swinging robot, entrainment skills, degrees of freedom problem %P 87-93 %E Luc Berthouze %E Fr?d?ric Kaplan %E Hideki Kozima %E Hiroyuki Yano %E J?rgen Konczak %E Giorgio Metta %E Jacqueline Nadel %E Giulio Sandini %E Georgi Stojanov %E Christian Balkenius %V 123 %D 2005 %I Lund University Cognitive Studies %L cogprints4969