Novel Biomimetic Mechanism Inspired by Snake: Twisted String and Spiral Hose Mechanism

摘要

The body structure and hunting behavior of snakes have evolved through lengthy natural selection, making them highly remarkable. There are striking similarities between the soft robotics and biological snakes, including softness, adaptability, flexibility, and efficiency. Therefore, snakes are excellent bio-inspiration animals in the field of soft robotics. We propose a new mechanism called the Twisted String and Spiral Hose Mechanism (TSSH) that can be applied in the field of soft robotics, inspired by the snake's prey constriction. This mechanism can achieve complex locomotion with a simple component. It can deform into a helical shape, and the radius of the helix can be controlled. This mechanism has the potential to be applied in a griper that can disregard size and shape within a certain range. We conducted experiments to validate its performance. Subsequently, we employed a modeling method based on a discrete model for deformable linear objects to model and analyze the TSSH mechanism. At last, we proposed some potential future applications of this novel mechanism.