Design and Control of a Snake Arm Robot

In view of the complexity of the driving mechanism, the large volume of the whole machine and the difficulty of modeling, a novel snake arm robot is proposed. Driven by a lever structure, the proposed robot uses a servo motor to control two driving ropes simultaneously, and thus the number of driving mechanisms and energy consumption are reduced. Orthogonal joints are used to realize closed-loop position control and simplify kinematic model. Further, tip following control and closed-loop position control are proposed to fit the different working environments. The former can improve the flexibility of the robot and simplify the control, while the latter can realize spatial repositioning control. Finally, the experiments show that the robot design is rational and the control method is effective.