Serpentine locomotion with robotic snakes

Sato, Misa; Fukaya, Masashi; Iwasaki, Tetsuya

doi:10.1109/37.980248

Cited by 344 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This model has been widely used to study and model the terrestrial motion of snakes (e.g. Hirose and Morishima (1990), Dowling (1999), Prautsch and Mita (1999), Saito et al (2002), Mori and Hirose (2002), Chernousko (2005), Maladen et al (2011) and Enner et al (2012)). Here, we modify this model to consider the 3D motion of snakes through air.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control of gliding in a flying snake-inspired n -chain model

et al. 2017

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Flying snakes of genus Chrysopelea possess a highly dynamic gliding behavior, which is dominated by an undulation in the form of lateral waves sent posteriorly down the body. The resulting high-amplitude periodic variations in the distribution of mass and aerodynamic forces have been hypothesized to contribute to the stability of the snake's gliding trajectory. However, a previous 2D analysis in the longitudinal plane failed to reveal a significant effect of undulation on the stability in the pitch direction. In this study, a theoretical model was used to examine the dynamics and stability characteristics of flying snakes in three dimensions. The snake was modeled as an articulated chain of airfoils connected with revolute joints. Along the lines of vibrational control methods, which employ high-amplitude periodic inputs to produce desirable stable motions in nonlinear systems, undulation was considered as a periodic input to the system. This was implemented either by directly prescribing the joint angles as periodic functions of time (kinematic undulation), or by assuming periodic torques acting at the joints (torque undulation). The aerodynamic forces were modeled using blade element theory and previously determined force coefficients. The results show that torque undulation, along with linearization-based closed-loop control, could increase the size of the basin of stability. The effectiveness of the stabilization provided by torque undulation is a function of the amplitude and frequency of the input. In addition, kinematic undulation provides open-loop stability for sufficiently large frequencies. The results suggest that the snakes need some amount of closed-loop control despite the clear contribution of undulation to glide stability. However, as the closed-loop control system needs to work around a passively stable trajectory, undulation lowers the demand for a complex closed-loop control system. Overall, this study demonstrates the possibility of maintaining stability during gliding using a morphing body instead of symmetrically paired wings.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control of gliding in a flying snake-inspired n -chain model

et al. 2017

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“…Let us assume viscous friction between robot and pipe as in Saito et al (2002), Liljebäck et al (2010), Ariizumi and Matsuno (2017), and Ariizumi et al (2018). The friction is assumed to be proportional to the normal force from the pipe as in Hicks and Ito (2005) and Ariizumi and Matsuno (2017).…”

Section: Model Including Slip Between Robot and Pipementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These methods can be separated into two approaches. One considers the sideslip of the robot body (Saito et al, 2002;Mohammadi et al, 2015;Ariizumi et al, 2018), and the other considers non-holonomic constraints without sideslip (Matsuno and Sato, 2005;Tanaka et al, 2015;Nakajima et al, 2019). These methods have the advantages of simple environments and essentially planar surfaces but are unsuitable for complex or unknown environments because it is difficult to construct the dynamic model including the interaction with such environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unified Approach to the Motion Design for a Snake Robot Negotiating Complicated Pipe Structures

et al. 2021

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A unified method for designing the motion of a snake robot negotiating complicated pipe structures is presented. Such robots moving inside pipes must deal with various “obstacles,” such as junctions, bends, diameter changes, shears, and blockages. To surmount these obstacles, we propose a method that enables the robot to adapt to multiple pipe structures in a unified way. This method also applies to motion that is necessary to pass between the inside and the outside of a pipe. We designed the target form of the snake robot using two helices connected by an arbitrary shape. This method can be applied to various obstacles by designing a part of the target form specifically for given obstacles. The robot negotiates obstacles under shift control by employing a rolling motion. Considering the slip between the robot and the pipe, the model expands the method to cover cases where two helices have different properties. We demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in various experiments.

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“…It also pushed against and propelled its wheels up the vertical surface, which reduced the load of pitching segments and increased the Royal Society Open Science (2020), 7: 191192; https://li.me.jhu.edu 19 maximal cantilevering length. We note that our robot still has the potential to achieve even higher speeds with high traversal probability, because in our experiments the motors were actuated at only 50% full speed to protect the robot from breaking after drastically flipping over as well as motor overload due to inertial forces and we have yet to systematically test and identify optimal serpenoid wave parameters [62]. [28,31,[35][36][37][38]40]…”

Section: Contribution To Roboticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robotic modelling of snake traversing large, smooth obstacles reveals stability benefits of body compliance

2020

R. Soc. open sci.

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Snakes can move through almost any terrain. Although their locomotion on flat surfaces using planar gaits is inherently stable, when snakes deform their body out of plane to traverse complex terrain, maintaining stability becomes a challenge. On trees and desert dunes, snakes grip branches or brace against depressed sand for stability. However, how they stably surmount obstacles like boulders too large and smooth to gain such "anchor points" is less understood. Similarly, snake robots are challenged to stably traverse large, smooth obstacles for search and rescue and building inspection. Our recent study discovered that snakes combine body lateral undulation and cantilevering to stably traverse large steps. Here, we developed a snake robot with this gait and snake-like anisotropic friction and used it as a physical model to understand stability principles. The robot traversed steps as high as a third of its body length rapidly and stably. However, on higher steps, it was more likely to fail due to more frequent rolling and flipping over, which was absent in the snake with a compliant body. Adding body compliance reduced the robot's roll instability by statistically improving surface contact, without reducing speed. Besides advancing understanding of snake locomotion, our robot achieved high traversal speed surpassing most previous snake robots and approaching snakes, while maintaining high traversal probability.

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Serpentine locomotion with robotic snakes

Cited by 344 publications

References 31 publications

Control of gliding in a flying snake-inspired n -chain model

Control of gliding in a flying snake-inspired n -chain model

Unified Approach to the Motion Design for a Snake Robot Negotiating Complicated Pipe Structures

Robotic modelling of snake traversing large, smooth obstacles reveals stability benefits of body compliance

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