Simultaneous Gait Generation and Path Following Control of Snake Robot Using MPC

Abstract

The path following control with given forward velocity for snake robot is important in real applications. Most of traditional model based snake robot control methods rely on predefined gaits. In this paper, the simultaneous gait generation and path following control with given forward velocity are investigated under the MPC scheme. Firstly, two cost functions are respectively studied for the snake robot, to realize path convergence and to maximize the forward velocity. Then a MPC scheme is proposed by combining the two cost functions, to achieve better path following control performance and higher forward velocity of the snake robot. Moreover, the forward velocity control of snake robot is realized by viewing the desired velocity as one constraint. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.