Control of a Snake Robot With Proximity Sensors to Adapt for Two Variable Planes

This paper proposes a control method for a snake robot to move between two planes amidst changing environmental conditions. The proposed approach uses a proximity sensor affixed to the robot to estimate its position and orientation relative to the plane. When the robot’s wheels become ungrounded due to environmental fluctuations, the control mode seamlessly transitions from propulsion control to recovery control. During recovery control, the robot is controlled to ensure that the ungrounded wheels regain contact with the plane. The integration of sensor information, propulsion control, and recovery control enables the snake robot to effectively adapt to the dynamically changing environment and maintain locomotion. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology was confirmed through experiments employing a snake robot. The results validate the robot’s capability to traverse variable planes by utilizing the estimated information of plane. Moreover, the snake robot successfully regained ground contact through recovery control, even when encountering instances of ungrounded wheels during propulsion. Thus, the findings substantiate the robot’s ability to sustain propulsion by maintaining the wheels grounded.