Abstract
The paper presents the design of an autonomous, wheeless, mechanical snake robot that was modeled and built at Notre Dame University – Louaize. The robot is also capable of 3D motion with an ability to climb in the z-direction. The snake is made of a series links, each containing one to three high torque DC motors and a gearing system. They are connected to each other through Aluminum hollow rods that can be rotated through a 180° span. This allows the snake to move in various environments including unfriendly and cluttered ones. The front link has a proximity sensor used to map the environment. This mapping is sent to a microcontroller which controls and adapts the motion pattern of the snake. The snake can therefore choose to avoid obstacles, or climb over them if their height is within its range. The presented model is made of five links, but this number can be increased as their role is repetitive. The novel design is meant to overcome previous limitations by allowing 3D motion through electric actuators and low energy consumption.
Highlights
The development of snake-like robots has been a major trend for the past few years
Imitating nature in the design of robots greatly increase their ability to move on various terrains and surfaces. This comes handy in exploration missions where irregular surfaces of various types may be faced
Snake robots can be used in places either too small for people to reach or too dangerous, or as a preliminary exploration before sending people like in space exploration missions
Summary
The development of snake-like robots has been a major trend for the past few years. Snake-like robots present many advantages because of their serpentine motion which allow them to move over most surface types and in clustered environments [1]. Several other snake robots with passive wheels have been proposed over the years They are only able to move across relatively flat surfaces since passive wheels do not move very well in a cluttered environment. Our proposed solution adopts a novel design for the snake robot that will be presented in this study. This innovative new design allows 3D motion for an autonomous multi-link and wheeless snake robot. The paper ends on a conclusion and a description of the future works intended to further develop this new design
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