Serpentine Robot Model and Gait Design Using Autodesk Inventor and Simulink SimMechanics

Abstract

Abstract. The authors introduce gaits of a serpentine robot with linear expansion mechanism where the robot varies its length using joints with three degrees of freedom. The 3D model of the serpentine robot is drawed in Autocad Inventor ® and exported to SimMechanics ® for straighforward modeling of the kinematics. The gaits are important for robots designed to explore ruins of disasters where the working spaces are very tight. For maximum flexibility of the serpentine robot, we adopted a joint design with three parallel actuators, where the joint is capable of linear movement in the forward axis, and rotational movements around two other axes. The designed linear expansion gaits is calculated for forward movement when the robot is posing straight or turning laterally.