Autonomous, Monocular, Vision-Based Snake Robot Navigation and Traversal of Cluttered Environments using Rectilinear Gait Motion

TL;DR

This paper presents a monocular vision-based navigation system for snake robots, enabling autonomous traversal of cluttered environments by combining visual odometry, mapping, and path planning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework integrating monocular SLAM, obstacle detection, and rectilinear gait control for autonomous snake robot navigation without global sensing.

Findings

Successful autonomous navigation in obstacle-rich environments

Effective self-localization using monocular visual odometry and SLAM

Path planning enabled by ground plane segmentation and collision detection

Abstract

Rectilinear forms of snake-like robotic locomotion are anticipated to be an advantage in obstacle-strewn scenarios characterizing urban disaster zones, subterranean collapses, and other natural environments. The elongated, laterally-narrow footprint associated with these motion strategies is well-suited to traversal of confined spaces and narrow pathways. Navigation and path planning in the absence of global sensing, however, remains a pivotal challenge to be addressed prior to practical deployment of these robotic mechanisms. Several challenges related to visual processing and localization need to be resolved to to enable navigation. As a first pass in this direction, we equip a wireless, monocular color camera to the head of a robotic snake. Visiual odometry and mapping from ORB-SLAM permits self-localization in planar, obstacle-strewn environments. Ground plane traversability segmentation in conjunction with perception-space collision detection permits path planning for navigation. A previously presented dynamical reduction of rectilinear snake locomotion to a non-holonomic kinematic vehicle informs both SLAM and planning. The simplified motion model is then applied to track planned trajectories through an obstacle configuration. This navigational framework enables a snake-like robotic platform to autonomously navigate and traverse unknown scenarios with only monocular vision.