Locomotion control of a novel snake-like robot

Abstract

It is essential to design a joint mechanism for snake-like robots to exhibit more mobility, no singularity and powerful actuation for many applications. By adding a series of passive wheels to the perimeter of the newly designed joint mechanism with 3 DOFs, a snake-like robot provided with the characteristic of omnidirectional mechanism can traverse rough terrain and compensate the lack of actuation due to passive wheels. The nonholonomic constraints and kinematics are analyzed as well as the redundancy. The composite motion method and grouping alternation motion control method are thus proposed for the locomotion of robot and the avoidance of singularity. Also, the grouping alternation motion adds a new explanation to the sinus lifting locomotion of natural snake. Computer simulations validate both mobility of mechanism and effectiveness of control methods.