Locomotion control of a snake robot with constraint force attenuation

Abstract

We deal with the locomotion control of a snakelike articulated robot with passive wheels. The robot gains propulsion by means of constraint forces on the wheels caused by actuating the joints. The so-called serpentine movement is known to be an effective gait on a flat ground. Our goal is to achieve such motion by autonomous gait generation, i.e., without giving any winding gait beforehand. Therefore we utilize a notion of manipulability to evaluate the locomotability and propose a control method capable of reducing the constraint forces. The results of simulations show that smooth motion is generated.