Serpentine robot moves and postures

Besides all the locomotion gaits, a snake demonstrates various special moves and postures in relevant circumstances. For example, while negotiating an obstacle it may climb over, take a left turn, right turn or U-tern; raises its hood to survey or to attack. Serpentine locomotion has already been studied by many researchers in detail for implementation on articulated robots. On the contrary serpentine moves and postures have drawn very limited degree of interest. Without these moves and postures a serpentine robot loses its versatility and mission compatibility. This paper considers formulation of a few such moves and postures through a new formalism termed as Joint Orientation Functions. These issues have been critically examined in simulation and validated through experimentation on a serpentine robot.