Development of a vision-based target exploration system for snake-like robots in structured environments

Guoyuan Li,Håkon Bjerkgaard Waldum,Ruben Svedal Jørundl,Marcus Olai Grindvik,Houxiang Zhang

doi:10.1177/1729881420936141

Guoyuan Li, Håkon Bjerkgaard Waldum + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881420936141

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Abstract

Applying snake-like robots to environmental exploration has been a hot topic for years. How to achieve free navigation for target search in a complex environment in a safe and efficient manner is one of the main tasks that researchers in the field of robotics currently face. This article presents a target exploration system that takes advantages of visual sensing to navigate the snake-like robot in structured environments. Two cameras are utilized in the system. The first one is mounted on the head of the snake-like robot for target recognition and the other is an overhead camera which is responsible for locating the robot and identifying surrounding obstacles. All dead ends in the environment can thus be recognized using a template-based method. A search strategy for traversal of the dead ends is employed for generating exploration paths. Several gaits are developed for the snake-like robot. By switching between these gaits, the snake-like robot is able to follow the paths to search for the target. Two experiments are conducted in a maze environment. The experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed system for snake-like robots exploring in structured environments.

Highlights

There are increasing demanding exploration tasks in areas like deep sea and nuclear plant that are inaccessible or harmful to humans
We aim to develop a complete target exploration system from mechanical design, gait generation to visual-based navigation implementation for snake-like robots in a complex environment
We introduce a vision-based exploration system that can be used by a snake-like robot for navigation in structured environments

Summary

Introduction

There are increasing demanding exploration tasks in areas like deep sea and nuclear plant that are inaccessible or harmful to humans. Snake-like robots are considered one of the most suitable mobile robots to explore in such a complex environment. Compared to other types of mobile robots, such as wheeled and legged robots, the snake-like robots characterized by their redundant morphology, low center of gravity, and diversity of locomotion patterns are beneficial to avoid falling down, getting stuck, and even getting damaged in severe conditions. The last few decades have witnessed various applications of snake-like robots in complex environments, from surveillance,[1] search and rescue,[2] surgery[3] to inspection of transmission lines[4] and pipelines.[5, 6]

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