Snake Robot Locomotion Patterns for Straight and Curved Pipe

Abstract In the paper the locomotion of snake robot is introduced considering locomotion in straight and curved pipe. For the straight pipe locomotion was designed traveling wave locomotion pattern with sine-like wave which expands from rear of the robot to its front. For the locomotion in curved pipe was designed approach which is based on inverse kinematic model including besides primary task also secondary tasks, namely kinematic singularities avoidance task, obstacle avoidance task and joint limit avoidance task. For final inverse kinematic model was used approach of weight matrices by which can be stated the priorities of particular tasks. Both case studies were tested by experimental snake robot in order to verify introduced methodology for locomotion in the straight and curved pipe.