Economic model predictive control for snake robot locomotion

Abstract

Abstract— In this work, the control of snake robot loco-motion via economic model predictive control (MPC) is studied.Only very few examples of applications of MPC to snake robotsexist and rigorous proofs for recursive feasibility and conver-gence are missing. We propose an economic MPC algorithmthat maximizes the robot’s forward velocity and integratesthe choice of the gait pattern into the closed loop. We showrecursive feasibility of the MPC optimization problem, wheresome of the developed techniques are also applicable for theanalysis of a more general class of system. Besides, we provideperformance results and illustrate the achieved performanceby numerical simulations. We thereby show that the economicMPC algorithm outperforms a standard lateral undulationcontroller and achieves constraint satisfaction. Surprisingly, agait pattern different to lateral undulation results from theoptimization.