A 'sidewinding' locomotion gait for hyper-redundant robots

Abstract

The kinematics of a form of hyper-redundant mobile robot locomotion which is analogous to the sidewinding locomotion of desert snakes are considered. This form of locomotion can be generated by a repetitive traveling wave of mechanism bending. Using a continuous backbone curve model, algorithms are developed which enable travel in a uniform direction as well as changes in direction.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>