Related papers: Efficient bending and lifting patterns in snake lo…
We analyze two- and three-link planar snake-like locomotion and optimize the motion for efficiency. The locomoting system consists of two or three identical inextensible links connected via hinge joints, and the angles between the links are…
We develop a numerical scheme to determine which planar snake motions are optimal for locomotory efficiency, across a wide range of frictional parameter space. For a large coefficient of transverse friction, we find that retrograde…
We develop a model to study the locomotion of snakes on an inclined plane. We determine numerically which snake motions are optimal for two retrograde traveling-wave body shapes---triangular and sinusoidal waves---across a wide range of…
We determine analytically the form of optimal snake locomotion when the coefficient of transverse friction is large, the typical regime for biological and robotic snakes. We find that the optimal snake motion is a retrograde traveling wave,…
Snakes' bodies are covered in scales that make it easier to slide in some directions than in others. This frictional anisotropy allows for sliding locomotion with an undulatory gait, one of the most common for snakes. Isotropic friction is…
In this theoretical study, we present an analytical framework to investigate the slithering motion of snakes on flat surfaces. While previous studies have predominantly relied on numerical methods to identify optimal locomotion kinematics,…
Contact-rich problems, such as snake robot locomotion, offer unexplored yet rich opportunities for optimization-based trajectory and acyclic contact planning. So far, a substantial body of control research has focused on emulating snake…
Many previous studies of sliding locomotion have assumed that body inertia is negligible. Here we optimize the kinematics of a three-link body for efficient locomotion and include among the kinematic parameters the temporal period of…
We study the efficiency of sliding locomotion for three-link bodies in the presence of dry (Coulomb) friction. Friction coefficient space can be partitioned into several regions, each with distinct types of efficient kinematics. These…
Terrestrial locomotion requires generating appropriate ground reaction forces which depend on substrate geometry and physical properties. The richness of positions and orientations of terrain features in the 3-D world gives limbless animals…
Nature suggests that exploiting the elasticities and natural dynamics of robotic systems could increase their locomotion efficiency. Prior work on elastic snake robots supports this hypothesis, but has not fully exploited the nonlinear…
Many snakes live in deserts, forests, and river valleys and traverse challenging 3-D terrain like rocks, felled trees, and rubble, with obstacles as large as themselves and variable surface properties. By contrast, apart from branch…
Snakes can traverse almost all types of environments by bending their elongate bodies in 3-D to interact with the terrain. Similarly, a snake robot is a promising platform to perform critical tasks in various environments. Understanding how…
Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Many snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS) with their continuous and smooth bending capability better mimic their biological counterparts'…
The gaits of undulating animals arise from a complex interaction of their central nervous system, muscle, connective tissue, bone, and environment. As a simplifying assumption, many previous studies have often assumed that sufficient…
We propose a geometric model for optimal shape-change-induced motions of slender locomotors, e.g., snakes slithering on sand. In these scenarios, the motion of a body in world coordinates is completely determined by the sequence of shapes…
Object manipulation has been extensively studied in the context of fixed base and mobile manipulators. However, the overactuated locomotion modality employed by snake robots allows for a unique blend of object manipulation through…
Snake moves across various terrains by bending its elongated body. Recent studies discovered that snakes can use vertical bending to traverse terrain of large height variation, such as horizontally oriented cylinders, a wedge (Jurestovsky,…
This research introduces a novel heuristic algorithm known as the Snake Locomotion Learning Search algorithm (SLLS) designed to address optimization problems. The SLLS draws inspiration from the locomotion patterns observed in snakes,…
Bioinspired snake robotics has been a highly active area of research over the years and resulted in many prototypes. Much of these prototypes takes the form of serially jointed-rigid bodies. The emergence of soft robotics contributed to a…