Snake-worm: A Bi-modal Locomotion Robot  

作　　者：Zhouwei Du Hongbin Fang Jian Xu 

机构地区：[1]School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics,Tongji University,Shanghai 200092,China [2]Institute of AI and Robotics,Fudan University,Shanghai 200433,China [3]Engineering Research Center of AI and Robotics,Ministry of Education,Fudan University,Shanghai 20043,China [4]Shanghai Engineering Research Center of AI and Robotics,Fudan University,Shanghai 200433,China

出　　处：《Journal of Bionic Engineering》2022年第5期1272-1287,共16页仿生工程学报（英文版）

基　　金：This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant no.11932015;the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant no.91748203.

摘　　要：Inspired by the morphology characteristics and the locomotion mechanisms of the earthworm,and the snakes’morphology characteristics and motivated by the demands for multi-modal locomotion robots in variable working environments,this paper presents a novel bi-modal robot named as Snake-Worm Locomotion Robot(SWL-Robot).Two fundamentally different locomotion mechanisms,the earthworm’s peristaltic rectilinear locomotion and the snake’s lateral undulation,are synthesized in the SWL-Robot design.In detail,the SWL-Robot consists of six earthworm-like body segments interconnected by rotational joints and a head segment equipped with a couple of independently driven wheels.By actuating the segments following a peristaltic wave-like gait,the robot as a whole could perform earthworm-like rectilinear crawling.The robot could also perform snake-like undulatory locomotion driven by differential motions of the wheels at the head segment.To understand the relationship between the design parameters and the robotic locomotion performance,kinematic models of the SWL-Robot corresponding to the two locomotion modes are developed.Rich locomotion behaviors of the SWL-Robot are achieved,including the peristaltic locomotion inside a tube,multiple planar motions on a flat surface,and a hybrid motion that switches between the tube and the flat surface.It shows that the measured trajectories of the SWL-Robot agree well with the theoretical predictions.The SWL-Robot is promising to be implemented in tasks where both tubular and flat environments may be encountered.

关 键 词：Multi-modal locomotion Peristaltic locomotion Planar locomotion Worm-like robot Snake-like robot 

分 类 号：TP242[自动化与计算机技术—检测技术与自动化装置]