A survey on snake robot modeling and locomotion

Snake robots have the potential to make substantial contributions in areas such as rescue missions, firefighting, and maintenance where it may either be too narrow or too dangerous for personnel to operate. During the last 10–15 years, the published literature on snake robots has increased significantly. The purpose of this paper is to give a survey of the various mathematical models and motion patterns presented for snake robots. Both purely kinematic models and models including dynamics are investigated. Moreover, the different approaches to biologically inspired locomotion and artificially generated motion patterns for snake robots are discussed

Waypoint guidance control of snake robots

This paper considers path following control of snake robots and has two contributions. The first contribution is a description of how a straight line path following controller previously proposed by the authors can be extended to path following of general curved paths. The second contribution of this paper is a waypoint guidance strategy for steering a snake robot along a path defined by waypoints interconnected by straight lines. The waypoint guidance strategy builds on the straight line path following controller previously proposed by the authors. The paper presents simulation results that illustrate the performance of the proposed guidance strategy

Waypoint guidance control of snake robots

This paper considers path following control of snake robots and has two contributions. The first contribution is a description of how a straight line path following controller previously proposed by the authors can be extended to path following of general curved paths. The second contribution of this paper is a waypoint guidance strategy for steering a snake robot along a path defined by waypoints interconnected by straight lines. The waypoint guidance strategy builds on the straight line path following controller previously proposed by the authors. The paper presents simulation results that illustrate the performance of the proposed guidance strategy.(c) 2011 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works

Modular Pneumatic Snake Robot: 3D Modelling, Implementation and Control

This paper gives a treatment of various aspects related to snake locomotion. A mathematical model and a physical implementation of a modular snake robot are presented. A control strategy is also developed, yielding a general expression for different gait patterns. Two forms of locomotion have been simulated with the mathematical model, and experiments with the physical snake robot have been conducted. The simulation results revealed the parameter through which directional control may be achieved for each gait pattern. Experiments with the physical snake robot gave a crude qualitative verification of these findings

Path following control of planar snake robots using a cascaded approach

This paper considers path following control of snake robots along straight paths. The proposed controller propels the snake robot forward according to the motion pattern lateral undulation while simultaneously adjusting the heading of the robot according to a line-of-sight guidance law that steers the robot towards and subsequently along the desired path. Under the assumption that the forward velocity of the snake robot is nonzero and positive, we prove that the proposed path following controller K-exponentially stabilizes a snake robot to any desired straight path. The paper presents simulation results that illustrate the effectiveness of the path following controller

Modelling and control of obstacle-aided snake robot locomotion based on jam resolution

A snake robot can traverse cluttered and irregular environments by using irregularities around its body as push-points to aid the propulsion. This characteristic feature of snake locomotion, denoted obstacle-aided locomotion, has received limited focus in previous literature. This paper presents a model of this phenomenon and a control strategy employing measured contact forces to maintain propulsion while simultaneously preventing the snake robot from being jammed between obstacles in its path. The simulation results validate the contact modelling approach and the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy

A snake robot with a contact force measurement system for obstacle-aided locomotion

A snake robot can traverse cluttered and irregular environments by using irregularities around its body as push-points to aid the propulsion. This is denoted obstacle-aided locomotion and requires the snake robot to have two features: 1) a smooth exterior surface combined with 2) a contact force sensing system. These two features are characteristic of biological snakes, but have received limited attention in snake robot designs so far. This paper describes the development of a new snake robot aimed at meeting both these requirements. The paper details the design and implementation of the snake robot, presents experimental results that validate the function of the contact force measurement system, and demonstrates some of the motion capabilities of the robot