The Modular Snake Robot Open Project: Turning animal functions into engineering tools

Abstract

This paper introduces the KM-RoBoTa's Modular Snake Robot Open Project, as a part of the research and development activities of this Colombian institution. The contents of the paper are divided in two main parts. First, the aim of this bio-inspired project is presented, which is built upon the relationships between animal physiology and engineering tools. Second, the extension and re-categorization of the entire project using different research and development achievements of our institution, is presented. This includes developments of hardware, which can be summarized as the description of the machine, the sensors and the processing unit. Developments in software as loco-manipulation controllers, simulation tools and a robot architecture implementation to integrate either software and hardware. This paper is an insight of the outlooks in modular snake robot research by our institution, particularly modeling locomotion and implementing or improving perception and task capabilities under the bio-inspired gaze.