Effects of the compliant intervertebral discs in the snake-like robots: A simulation study

Abstract

Snake-like robots can adapt to the changes in the dynamic environments. Compared with developing a complex controller, a simple compliant mechanism can inherently improve the performance of the snake-like robot. In this paper, a simulation study on the effects of the compliant intervertebral discs designed for the planar snake-like robot is carried out. And a two-layered central pattern generator (CPG) based controller is proposed for the snake-like robot. The kinematic and dynamic models of the compliant snake-like robot are analyzed. The performances of the snake-like robot are associated with the stiffness and damped coefficients of the compliant elements. The lateral undulation locomotion of the snake-like robot have been simulated through the Simulink and MSC.Adams. The results show that the introduction of the compliant elements can evidently reduce the power consumption of the snake-like robot. However, the moving distance of the snake-like robot is slightly decreased. Compared with the stiffness coefficient, the damped coefficient of the compliant elements has greater impact on the power consumption.