Introduction

Abstract

This introductory text describes the motivation and scope of the research activities underlying this book. In particular, the book has been written by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and also researchers from the Norwegian research organisation SINTEF. The research was initiated in 2003 based on the idea of a self-propelled fire hose as a robotic tool to aid human firefighters. The idea was, in other words, to turn a fire hose into a water hydraulic snake robot that can move in extreme environments with the agility of a biological snake. The critical and most significant research challenge of this robotic concept was (and still is) the serpentine propulsion mechanism of this system. Over the last years, the research on snake robots at NTNU and SINTEF has therefore targeted snake robot locomotion in general without concern about the specific application of the robot. The main goal of this book is to increase our basic understanding of snake robot locomotion. To this end, the focus of the book is primarily directed towards control design. Efficient control strategies are vital to future applications of snake robots, and are also instrumental in the development of these mechanisms. In this introductory chapter, we also present aspects of biological snakes that are relevant to modelling, implementation, and control of snake robots. Moreover, the chapter provides an extensive overview of the snake robot literature which represents a suitable starting point for research in this area. The chapter ends with a summary of each chapter of the book.