Interactive Path-Following Method of Snake-like Robot

Snake-like robots are widely studied for their high degree of flexibility. An important way to avoid collisions during a journey for a snake is that the whole body moves along a given path. In order to achieve safe and efficient robot movement in the working environment, this paper proposes a path-following method that takes into account the position accuracy and computational speed. The constraints on the path curve and joint angle are clarified by the analysis of the geometric relations. A new forward kinematics model of the articulated snake-like robot is established as a control basis. Even the snake-like robots with different lengths can move along any complex 3D path using this method. Furthermore, the desired path can be artificially adjusted in real time so that the robot can avoid the obstacle through the manual control of the operator in an unknown environment. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is verified by simulations and experiments, and its efficiency performance is demonstrated. The six-section snake-like robot used in the experiment can accurately track the desired path, and the average single-step calculation takes less than 1ms. The accuracy and real-time performance of the method fully fulfill the requirement of engineering applications.