Abstract
Rolling constraints often appear as nonholonomic constraints and give us some difficult control problems in robotics. We have tried to build the unified framework for the rolling robots whose locomotion is generated by internal mass manipulation. Therefore, we developed a novel driving module for such special rolling robots. The module plays roles in the internal mass manipulator and the internal mass itself. Using the module with cylindrical shell, we carried out the rolling experiments especially of spiral motions because the spiral motion can be one of the fundamental motions of the rolling robots. As the result of the experiments, it is revealed that rolling and spin resistance are actually dominant in spiral motions for the rolling robot with cylindrical shell.
