Dynamic Modeling and Validation of Soft Robotic Snake Locomotion

A Study of Energy-Efficient and Optimal Locomotion in a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle-Driven Snake Robot

“…On the other hand, recent advancements in soft robotics facilitate the design and development of monolithic soft-bodied compliant mechanisms for a variety of applications [12], including soft-bodied terrestrial and aquatic locomotion such as an untethered quadrupedal fully soft robot [13], a soft-bodied robotic fish [14], and a bio-inspired quadruped robots with compliant legs [15]. In particular, snake robots [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] have been developed with structurally deformable bodies that increase the flexibility and adaptability to the surrounding environments in comparison to their rigid-bodied counterparts while reducing the cost, weight, and complexity of the mechanical structures [22,24]. As the first of its kind, a silicone-based snake-like robot [16][17][18]21] was developed with segmented bi-directional bending soft actuators with a passive wheel under each segment to generate the anisotropic frictions for planar movements.…”

“…However, the fluidic soft actuators, particularly elastomer-based actuators, used in these soft snake robots are very slow (i.e., with a low bandwidth) in dynamic responses with a low force generation, which makes them inferior in terms of energy efficiency compared to the electrical motor-based snake robots. In recent works, a continuum wheelless soft robotic snake (SRS) [22,23] with integrated PAMs was developed to generate a continuous bending motion in 3D for spatial rolling gaits.…”