An amphibious snake-like robot: Design and motion experiments on ground and in water

Abstract

This paper presents an amphibious snake-like robot's design and its omnipotent locomotion ability both on the land and in the water. This amphibious snake-like robot, mainly composed by 9 modular universal units, is waterproof and can move smoothly in the water while pressurized with O-rings and other essential accessories. In this paper, we concentrate on the gait diversity of the amphibious snake-like robot. Due to its special joint design and the feature of being densely covered by vanes, the robot is endowed with an omnipotent ability of amphibious locomotion. Besides the traditional fundamental gaits, the robot displays unheard-of gaits like S-shape rolling and helical rolling, which all have important influences on the robot's traversing ability and control of position and posture. We still use a simplified serpenoid curve to deduce the control equations for each gait, but have new discoveries on gait generation method and traits of the robot's diverse locomotion. Experimental results show all gaits of the amphibious snake-like robot.