Teleoperation Snake Robots with Panorama Vision

Abstract

Snake robots could be potentially used for exploring constricted situations with its particularly superiority including accessing narrow cavities and climbing pole-like objects. Due to the complexity of external scene, snake robots cannot cope with all complex situations independently. Therefore, we propose a teleoperation snake robots wtih teleoperation mode and autonomy mode using panorama vision. In the teleoperation mode, opretator can interacte with the snake rotot with a VR and a teleoperation device. When the target detected, the sanke robots can be switched to the autonomy mode and accomplish the established task automatically. In order to meet the needs of the both modes, we developed a wireless panorama camera with four lenses, one inertial measurement unit (IMU), one GPS, one WIFI module and one FPGA board for the teleoperation snake robot. Based on this camera, we present a whole pole-climbing solution, including Single Shot multibox Detector (SSD)-based pole detection, panorama SLAM for pole localization and locomotion strategy for the snake robot to move to and climb the poles. Several experimental results demonstrate the practicability of the panorama camera and the effectiveness of the pole-climbing solution.