Abstract
One of the most general snake's locomotion patterns is lateral undulation. Its important characteristic is sinus-lifting. It has an effect of improving propulsion efficiency. We made a hypothesis that sinus-lifting occurs due to geometrical and physical characteristics of the musculoskeletal system based on the anatomical findings. We investigate it by using snake-like robot PAS-2. PAS-2 is based on anatomical knowledge. In our former study, we measure only reaction force. However, it is necessary to simultaneously measure three-dimensional kinematics and reaction force from the ground. In this report, we simultaneously measure reaction force and three-dimensional kinematics. In the experiment, we gave PAS-2 two kinds of muscle drive patterns of EMG and simple pattern. There was no significant difference between these two kinds of muscle drive pattern and the results partly vouches the hypothesis. However, we found some problems in the mechanisms and the electric systems of the robot, which are our future works.
