Optimally Efficient Locomotion of Snake Robot

Abstract

Energy efficient locomotion is critical for untethered snake robots. Despite enhancements in the development of snake robots in terms of modelling and control, a little attention has been given to find optimal locomotion for the snake robot. In this paper, symbiotic organism search algorithm is used to generate the optimum gait parameters for a wheel-less snake robot both minimizing the average power consumption and maximizing the forward velocity of the robot. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves satisfying results regarding power consumption reduction with optimal forward velocity for lateral undulation motion. Therefore, the paper indicates that the proposed method is an efficient and practicable technique for finding optimum gait parameters and could be helpful for control design of the snake robot.