Odometry of a Three-Dimensional Snake-like Robot and its Application

This paper describes the odometry for snake-like robots. The key idea is based on the assumption that the body does not slip on the contact points. Subsequently, the position of each part of the body is calculated from joint angle information. The method is applicable to crawler gait, sidewinding, and helical rolling, all of which satisfy the nonslip assumption. Simulations and experiment were conducted to verify the proposed method. Using a physics simulator, odometry error was evaluated for three types of gait. In an experiment in a pipeline of a mockup plant, the robot was visualized together with the point clouds of a pipe surface obtained from tactile sensor information.