Mechanics and Control of a Terrestrial Vehicle Exploiting a Nonholonomic Constraint for Fishlike Locomotion

Abstract

We present a novel mechanical system, the "landfish," which takes advantage of a combination of articulation and a nonholonomic constraint to exhibit fishlike locomotion. We apply geometric mechanics techniques to establish the equations of motion in terms of the system's nonholonomic momentum and analyze the system's equilibrium properties. Finally, we demonstrate its locomotion capabilities under several controllers, including heading and joint velocity control.

Stability and Control of Chaplygin Beanies Coupled to a Platform through Nonholonomic Constraints

“…Mechanical systems exhibiting nonholonomic constraints have recently been of utility in studying the effects of compliance in biological agents as well as the role of media coupling the dynamics of such agents. For example, systems like the Chaplygin beanie [1], snakeboard [2,3], landfish [4], and various nonholonomic snake robots [5,6], have proven to be motivating examples in the control of biologically inspired robots. Specifically, the passive response many biological agents exhibit due to the natural compliance of joints or connective tissues has inspired the use of torsional springs to model compliance in mechanical systems with nonholonomic constraints [7].…”

“…Specifically, the passive response many biological agents exhibit due to the natural compliance of joints or connective tissues has inspired the use of torsional springs to model compliance in mechanical systems with nonholonomic constraints [7]. The utility in using reduced representations for proving the stability of such nonholonomic systems was demonstrated in [1] and [4]. Additionally, recent works in multi-agent systems which are coupled to their environment have incorporated such compliant models [8].…”