ARCSnake: Reconfigurable Snake-Like Robot with Archimedean Screw Propulsion for Multi-Domain Mobility

TL;DR

ARCSnake introduces a reconfigurable snake-like robot with Archimedean screw propulsion, enabling effective multi-domain mobility across diverse and extreme terrains for exploration purposes.

Contribution

This work presents a novel robotic system combining snake-like locomotion with screw propulsion, enhancing mobility in challenging environments beyond existing methods.

Findings

Successfully navigates diverse terrains including caves and oceans.

Demonstrates controllable multi-domain mobility.

Proves effectiveness in extreme environments.

Abstract

Exploring and navigating in extreme environments, such as caves, oceans, and planetary bodies, are often too hazardous for humans, and as such, robots are possible surrogates. These robots are met with significant locomotion challenges that require traversing a wide range of surface roughnesses and topologies. Previous locomotion strategies, involving wheels or ambulatory motion, such as snake platforms, have success on specific surfaces but fail in others which could be detrimental in exploration and navigation missions. In this paper, we present a novel approach that combines snake-like robots with an Archimedean screw locomotion mechanism to provide multiple, effective mobility strategies in a large range of environments, including those that are difficult to traverse for wheeled and ambulatory robots. This work develops a robotic system called ARCSnake to demonstrate this locomotion principle and tested it in a variety of different terrains and environments in order to prove its controllable, multi-domain, navigation capabilities. These tests show a wide breadth of scenarios that ARCSnake can handle, hence demonstrating its ability to traverse through extreme terrains.