A Review on the Recent Development of Planar Snake Robot Control and Guidance

Abstract

Snake robots, inspired by the biology of snakes, are bionic robots with multiple degrees of freedom and strong robustness. These robots represent a current area of significant research interest within the field of robotics. Snake robots have a wide range of applications in many fields, advancing the integration of bionics, robotics, and cybernetics, while playing a crucial role in performing survey and rescue missions. This survey presents the latest technological advancements in modeling, motion control, and guidance laws for planar snake robots, and provides a unified perspective based on the existing results. To achieve target-tracking control of robots in complex environments, we present a feasible approach that integrates guided vector field technology and transforms the target-tracking and obstacle avoidance problem into a reference angle tracking issue. Finally, this paper analyzes and summarizes the development process and key technologies of snake robot control and provides an outlook on future development trends.