REFINED THEORETICAL MODELING OF A NEW-GENERATION PRESSURE-OPERATED SOFT SNAKE

Our pressure-operated soft snake robot promises inherent flexibility and versatility to operate on complex and unpredictable environments compared to traditional snake robots made of rigid linkage chains. We previously presented a theoretical framework to describe its unique dynamic behavior and experimentally verified the accuracy of this model. This previous work had some drawbacks; the maximum center of mass velocity of the previous soft snake was one tenth its body length per second and the dynamic model could not predict the behavior of the robot when following non-linear trajectories because of a lack of frictional torques. In this paper we introduce the next generation of our soft robotic snake we call the “WPI SRS”, which can locomote ten times faster than the previous version. Additionally, we present refinements to the dynamical model that can predict both linear and rotational motions of the robot. Finally, we demonstrate the accuracy of this refined model through experimentation.Copyright © 2015 by ASME

[1]  Shugen Ma,et al.  Analysis of Creeping Locomotion of a Snake-like Robot on a Slope , 2001, Auton. Robots.

[2]  Cagdas D. Onal,et al.  Optimized design of a rigid kinematic module for antagonistic soft actuation , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA).

[3]  Chris Rogers,et al.  Caterpillar locomotion: A new model for soft- bodied climbing and burrowing robots , 2006 .

[4]  Shigeo Hirose,et al.  Biologically Inspired Robots: Snake-Like Locomotors and Manipulators , 1993 .

[5]  Filip Ilievski,et al.  Multigait soft robot , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[6]  LuoMing,et al.  Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Analysis of a Pressure-Operated Soft Robotic Snake , 2014 .

[7]  Daniela Rus,et al.  Autonomous undulatory serpentine locomotion utilizing body dynamics of a fluidic soft robot , 2013, Bioinspiration & biomimetics.

[8]  Arianna Menciassi,et al.  A Soft Modular Manipulator for Minimally Invasive Surgery: Design and Characterization of a Single Module , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[9]  Tommaso Ranzani,et al.  A modular soft manipulator with variable stiffness , 2013 .

[10]  Cagdas D. Onal,et al.  Design improvements and dynamic characterization on fluidic elastomer actuators for a soft robotic snake , 2014, 2014 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA).

[11]  Tetsuya Iwasaki,et al.  Serpentine locomotion with robotic snakes , 2002 .

[12]  Cagdas D. Onal,et al.  Feedforward augmented sliding mode motion control of antagonistic soft pneumatic actuators , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

[13]  広瀬 茂男,et al.  Biologically inspired robots : snake-like locomotors and manipulators , 1993 .

[14]  C. D. Onal,et al.  A modular approach to soft robots , 2012, 2012 4th IEEE RAS & EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob).

[15]  Ming Luo,et al.  Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Analysis of a Pressure-Operated Soft Robotic Snake , 2014 .

[16]  Øyvind Stavdahl,et al.  Snake Robots: Modelling, Mechatronics, and Control , 2012 .

[17]  Howie Choset,et al.  Design and architecture of the unified modular snake robot , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[18]  Howie Choset,et al.  Toroidal skin drive for snake robot locomotion , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[19]  Cagdas D. Onal,et al.  A precise embedded curvature sensor module for soft-bodied robots , 2015 .