Abstract
Most of the snake-like robots utilize passive wheels under their body links to imitate the directional friction of snake belly, feathered with high simplicity. Therefore, the locomotion efficiency of a snake-like robot is closely influenced by the friction between passive wheels and ground. In this paper, the total energy consumption of a snake-like robot is analyzed firstly. Then we focus on modeling of the energy due to friction. We find that the incline angle of a passive wheel, defined as the deviating angle from the moving direction to the rolling direction of a wheel, is one of the most important factors to friction energy. A derivation of friction energy considered with the wheeled viscous friction model is proposed. Simulations are conducted to produce the motion trajectory of a snake-like robot on a planar ground and the friction energy is calculated using the derivation in former analysis.
