A simplified model of planar snake robot locomotion

Abstract

This paper presents a model of the kinematics and dynamics of a planar, wheelless snake robot aimed at control design and stability analysis purposes. The proposed model is significantly less complex than existing models of planar snake robot locomotion. The paper presents an analysis of an existing complex snake robot model which reveals a set of essential properties that characterize the overall motion of a planar snake robot. The proposed model is developed to capture only these essential properties of snake locomotion, thereby significantly reducing the complexity compared to the original model used in the analysis. The paper presents simulation results that indicate that the qualitative behaviour of the proposed model and the original complex model are similar, and that a quantitative similarity is achieved with a proper choice of numerical values of the friction coefficients in the two models.