Design of a simple controller for the flying hose type robot with water jet

Abstract

We have been developing the flexible hose type robot which is filled with water and actuated by water jet. We aim to use it for the fire-fighting: the hose flies to fire sources by using water jet from the outside of a building, then extinguishes the fire directly with the water without a risk to the rescue workers' life. Previously, we have proposed a simple control method to make the hose float stably by water jet with 2 dimensional model. In this report, the flexible hose is modelled by 3 dimensional N rigid bodies. Then, we investigate the physical features of the simple control method. We find that the simple control method still has physically feasible property, the control input can be represented by potential function.