In-Place Rotation for Enhancing Snake-like Robot Mobility

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel in-place turning gait for snake-like robots, validated through simulations and physical experiments, enhancing maneuverability in constrained environments using a shape-centric modeling approach.

Contribution

It develops a shape-centric modeling framework for in-place turning gaits, enabling effective trajectory planning and obstacle negotiation for snake-like robots.

Findings

The Turn-in-Place gait is successfully modeled and validated.

Shape-centric modeling captures diverse gait dynamics.

Robots can navigate complex environments using combined gaits.

Abstract

Gaits engineered for snake-like robots to rotate in-place instrumentally fill a gap in the set of locomotive gaits that have traditionally prioritized translation. This paper designs a Turn-in-Place gait and demonstrates the ability of a shape-centric modeling framework to capture the gait's locomotive properties. Shape modeling for turning involves a time-varying continuous body curve described by a standing wave. Presumed viscous robot-ground frictional interactions lead to body dynamics conditioned on the time-varying shape model. The dynamic equations describing the Turn-in-Place gait are validated by an articulated snake-like robot using a physics-based simulator and a physical robot. The results affirm the shape-centric modeling framework's capacity to model a variety of snake-like robot gaits with fundamentally different body-ground contact patterns. As an applied demonstration, example locomotion scenarios partner the shape-centric Turn-in-Place gait with a Rectilinear gait for maneuvering through constrained environments based on a multi-modal locomotive planning strategy. Unified shape-centric modeling facilitates trajectory planning and tracking for a snake-like robot to successfully negotiate non-trivial obstacle configurations.