Mechanism design and kinematic performance research of snake-like robot with orthogonal active wheels

Abstract

Snake-like robots perform greatly in search and rescue operation. However, most researches only focus on partial characteristics, which easily cause side effect on robot other performances. In this paper, we propose the development of a new snake-like robot with orthogonal active wheels and design a simple control method for trajectory tracking. Firstly, inspired from the motion of a natural snake, a mechanism based on orthogonal active wheel and 2-DOF parallel joint is designed. Secondly, the optimization process is given by the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm to obtain feasible solution of the joint mechanism for maximum output torque. Thirdly, in order to achieve the trajectory tracking of the robot, a kinematic model has been derived briefly using screw theory. Finally, some basic simulations have been carried out to verify the proposed structure characteristics and the proposed control scheme.