Effective parameters for helical pole climbing of the wheel-based modular snake robot

Abstract

This research aims to study the factor that affect pole climbing efficiency of the modular snake robot on the cylindrical pole with constant radius. The wheel-based modular snake is climbing the pole by forming itself into a helical or a spiral shape around the pole and using its driving wheel to propel itself upward along the helical path. The joint configuration of the robot can be found from the relation of helical pitch angle, helical radius, and link length of the robot. Five helical climbing configurations with different helical pitch angles and three spiral climbing configurations with different spiral's end radius were tested on the 18 degree of freedoms, 7 links modular hyper-redundant robot. The experimental result showed that the climbing velocity depends on the distribution of the grasping force and the helical pitch angle. The grasping force is affected by the helical radius and the helical pitch angle.