Body shape control of a snake-like robot based on phase oscillator network

This paper addresses a problem of locomotion control of a snake-like robot. The discontinuity of the input signal during transition of locomotion is not desirable which may cause a large sliding and slippage. To overcome this problem, a method that produce a smooth transition of the body shape of a snake-like robot is introduced by adopting CPG-based control. Body shape transition is important for a snake-like robot locomotion to adapt to different space widths especially for rescuing task in a hazardous environment. By changing the phase difference of the CPG outputs instantly, the phase transition will result in a sharp point or discontinuity of the input signal which will lead to a jerky movement of the snake-like robot. In this paper, we propose a novel way of producing smooth body shape transition of a snake-like robot i.e., by introducing an activation function. This method is simple and easy to be implemented for robot´s control. Simulation results and torque analysis confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.