抄録
Active Cord Mechanism represented by snake-like robots have the potential to be used for practical applications such as investigating tasks in narrow confined environments. However, the existing snake-like robots haven't combined environment sensing system and robust mechanism, though both of them are necessary to operate in real environments. Therefore we developed a snake-like robot named "ACM-R4n", which has waterproof mechanism and unique torque sensors we proposed in all joint units. The torque sensor is composed of 2 thin plates with cam mechanism and a rubber ring pressing them, and the torque is measured by the displacement between those 2 plates. It also works as a torque limiter because the rubber slips when overload is applied. The effectiveness of the mechanism and control is validated through experiments.
