New approach of fixation possibilities investigation for snake robot in the pipe

Abstract

The research field of the snake robots provides a large scale of new information. The snake robots locomotion in pipes represents one of many complicated problems attracting the attention only in recent time period. During this study an experimental environment was designed corresponding to the pipe of U shaped cross section. This article describes a new innovative kinematic structure enabling both rotary and translational movements of links of a snake robot. Combination of these two robot constrains in constructions provides new possibilities of locomotion in a confined space. The main work contribution consists in the analysis of geometric configuration of links in static fixation according to their displacements and required actuators electric power. In the experiment with physical model the method of digital image correlation was used because of the possibilities to take the movement of high dynamic range. Contribution of this experiment furnishes new information and new approach in solving the existing problem.