BIONIC RESEARCH ON CONCERTINA

MOTION OF A SNAKE-LIKE ROBOT

Liu Jinguo  Wang Yuechao  Li Bin  Chen Li

(Robotics Laboratory, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences,  Shenyang 110016)

Ma Shugen

(Ibaraki University, Hitachi-Shi 316-8511, Japan)

Abstract: After observation and experiment on nature snakes’ movement, snake’s ability of concertina motion in vertical plane is discovered. Concertina motion of snake  is widely adopted, especially in utmost hazardous environment. The principle, characteristics and the unique environments of both horizontal concertina motion and vertical concertina motion had been discussed in detail subsequently. Kinematics mathematic models of these concertina motions are proposed and analyzed. The homologous bionic physical structure is designed in accordance with snakes’ concertina motion principle. Finally, according to mathematical models, experiment on the snake-like robot verified the validity of these two gaits.

Key words: Snake-like robot  Concertina motion  Bionics  Modeling

CLC No: TP24 

国家863计划资助项目(2001AA422360). Received 20040830, received in revised form 20041227