A simplified CPGs network with phase oscillator model for locomotion control of snake-like robot

Abstract

This paper presents the locomotion control based on central pattern generator (CPG) of a snake-like robot. A novel structure of CPG network is proposed which can produce rhythmic motion that mimics movement of animals such as snake and lamprey. Phase oscillator has been adopted to control the harmonic motion of the CPG model. There are two main points addressed in this paper: (1) simple network structure with less mathematical computation, where our proposed structure shows that the outputs of the unidirectional coupling oscillators will asymptotically converge to oscillations that are phase locked, and (2) a single parameter to control the body shape of the snake-like robot, where body shape changing is important for a snake-like robot locomotion to adapt to different space widths. Simulation results show that the proposed CPG network can be used to control the serpentine locomotion of a snake-like robot.