Collision Free Behavior of Snake Robot Moving with Traveling Wave Gait

Obstacle avoidance method of traveling wave locomotion of snake robot is developed. The proposed method is employed on snake robot of 12 joints, connecting orthogonally, allowing three dimensional movement. The odd modules form the shape of the robot spine, while the even modules generate continuous vertical waves. The obstacle avoidance strategy based on controlling the head direction and body orientation of the snake robot. Laser Range Finder sensor is installed on the head of the robot to detects the surrounding environment and identify the type of typical terrain. In this paper, the details of this method are denoted and the effectiveness of the control strategy is investigated experimentally.