Design and control of biologically inspired wheel-less snake-like robot

This paper describes our research project on snake-like locomotion of robotic platforms and the results of the experiments conducted with a wheel-less snake-like robot prototype. Biological inspiration has been at the hardcore of the mechanical design and the control method applied to the robot. With closed-loop control applied to the present wheel-less prototype, it has succeeded in progressing through lateral undulation, the most common limbless locomotion type observed in natural snakes. Main results consist of the robustness of the locomotion with respect to the variations in initial conditions and external perturbations.