Dynamic Posture Manipulation During Tumbling for Closed-Loop Heading Angle Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a real-time control strategy for a snake robot that actively manipulates its posture during tumbling to steer effectively, combining passive dynamics with active control for improved navigation.

Contribution

It presents a novel collocation optimization-based control method enabling dynamic posture manipulation for active steering of a passive tumbling robot.

Findings

Successful simulation validation in Matlab.

Effective posture manipulation for steering control.

Enhanced navigation capabilities of the snake robot.

Abstract

Passive tumbling uses natural forces like gravity for efficient travel. But without an active means of control, passive tumblers must rely entirely on external forces. Northeastern University's COBRA is a snake robot that can morph into a ring, which employs passive tumbling to traverse down slopes. However, due to its articulated joints, it is also capable of dynamically altering its posture to manipulate the dynamics of the tumbling locomotion for active steering. This paper presents a modelling and control strategy based on collocation optimization for real-time steering of COBRA's tumbling locomotion. We validate our approach using Matlab simulations.