Realization of a snake robot that passes through inside of bent pipe connected with straigt pipes by helical rolling motion

Abstract

Biological snakes have a soft elongated body and adapt to various environment in spite of simple form. By using them for engineering, snake robots can move in complex environment. In the case that a snake-like robot goes into pipes, it can use helical rolling motion. In previous study, a method to make a bending helical shape for a snake-like robot is proposed. However the method is not utilized in a bent pipe connected with straight pipes. In this paper, we realize going through the pipes by using helical rolling motion and bending helical rolling motion. In addition, by considering a direction of bending helical rolling motion, we propose a method to adjust a snake robot to a bent pipe. The proposed method is verified by experiments.